Transformer Corporation            by: Patricia Pendragon

 

Chapter 2

The work I found myself called upon to do was, for me pure pleasure. In The Boss’ words "Give free reign to your imagination. Design masks of exotic people, aliens, animals - anything you can imagine. We have the latest in graphics packages for you to use and we will make and test your designs for our clients. When you are happy with that work, we can move on to full body suits!" In short, he was offering me a dream. What I did not appreciate at the time was that these masks and suits had special properties - and they were for supply to a very specialised chain of franchisees around the globe.

The Transformer Corp., I learned, supplied specialist goods. All its products related to transforming people (and I was later to learn - aliens and animals!) into whatever they wanted to be. As my new Boss explained, I was myself now a product of the process that linked ‘magic’ or more correctly Sorcery, to modern technology, making it possible to provide materials, charms and more elaborate goods with built in power to transform, regenerate and reshape the user.

"Look at me, my dear," smiled the Boss, "How old do you think I am?"

"Gee, Boss," I grinned back, "that’s a loaded question for a new employee!"

He smiled gently, "I assure you it is a serious question!"

"Well," I nodded, "I would guess at about mid-fifties, but you look closer to the forties. I don’t really know," I grinned, adding, "you could be as old as Methusala or an old looking twenty year old!"

He laughed and stood up saying, " Ever heard of Gilbert and Sullivan?"

I nodded, and he continued, "They wrote a dreadful little skit entitled "The Sorcerer". I am glad to say it is now seldom remembered, but they named it after me. Indiscreet to say the least. That was when I had to relocate briefly to other shores. It is, my dear an occasional hazard in my profession, people are worried by apparent immortality!"

"You mean… !" I faltered, "But that would mean you are over a hundred!"

"Yes," he smiled, "in fact considerably over! Come now, you will benefit from this as well you know! I look after my assistants well, why even at Salem and in East Anglia not one of my particulars was ever detected. The advent of this wonderful modern technology has made so much more excitingly possible." He laughed and continued, "It is said these days that magic is only the application of a higher technology! They misunderstand the science, but it is a description which will pass. In the Middle ages ordinary medicinal ‘magic’ appeared to be miraculous and healers were feared. Now those skills are commonplace yet still work the same miracles. No my dear, you have joined an exclusive little group that I have selected very carefully over the years, you bring to us some very useful skills and I will reward you well for them."

"But," I stammered, slightly stunned by this revelation, "I don’t understand Boss, are you saying you were alive at Salem and even before then?"

"Does it worry you?" he asked softly.

"I’m not sure," I stammered, "I mean…. At least I think I mean that…." I stopped lost for words!

"Well then," he gestured and suddenly I could remember only that he had told me that the company made high tech masks and body suits that could be used by people for movies, for parties and other applications in which it was necessary to appear to be something else. Somewhere it also registered that my own aging process would be slower than normal, but this didn’t really register in my conscious thoughts for some time.

Some time later I settled into the workstation alongside Barbara. On the desk I had a super computer terminal linked to several different cabinet like units of varying size along one wall of our studio. The computer graphics package took a little getting used to, but this proved easily learned and I was soon happily trying out some ideas for masks, eventually finding a design I was satisfied with. It was an Elf face based on a picture I had seen once before. With a slightly elongated face, long almond eyes and silver hair, the skin tone was a delicate ivory, the nose small and finely chiseled and the mouth small and thin lipped with a sardonic smile. It had an ethereal and very ‘other world’ look to it.

Barbara suggested we try a one off pilot of it and see what it looked like. At this point I discovered that there were sub-menus on the system which I had not seen before.

These asked for entry of the following:

duration of transformation,

gender of subject

single or multiple use, and

post use disposal.

Barbara helped me through it and suggested, as it was a pilot, that I should enter multiple use, retain post use, either for gender and transformation during wear only. All this was gibberish to me at the moment, but when I pressed the enter key and the screen flashed up "transferring data - please wait" followed a few minutes later by another message "Pilot mask will be ready in 2 minutes" I turned to Barbara and asked the obvious question!

"What the hell is all that about?"

"Watch that unit over there," she laughed, pointing to a locker sized unit with a set of LED’s flashing in a strange coded way on its side panel, "When the green light comes on it will be ready and you can retrieve your first prototype!"

On cue, the matrix of lights went from red, to amber and then green. Leading me to the small unit, which, when I looked more closely resembled a slightly large microwave oven, she popped the door and invited me to remove the contents. I gasped as I found myself looking at a complete mask exact in detail to my design in what appeared to be latex with some sort of fine synthetic hair attached. Gently I removed it from the unit and found it was fitted to a form. Barbara showed me how to remove it from this, replacing the form in the unit.

"Well," she said with a wicked smile, "are you going to try it out? Or shall I?"

"Nope," I grinned back at her, "I’ll try it first!"

"OK," she laughed in response, "Just remember, when you want to take it off, you have to think you want to take it off! Then it will open up and come off – if you don’t – well, I guess you’re about to find out!"

Carefully I pulled the mask over my face and arranged it so my own hair was fully covered taking care to get it so it lined up with my eyes and nostrils. To my disappointment it seemed to be a little too big, then, suddenly, things changed! The mask seemed to tighten and adhere to my face, moulding me to it! I gasped in surprise as I realised that it had actually in some strange way become my face and head. After a moment of panic and shock I forced myself to calm down and looked in the mirror Barbara held up for me. Staring back at me was a dream elf! It was amazing and not a little scary!

"Is this what all our products do?" I asked Barbara.

"Pretty much," she replied, "Like it?"

"Well, yeah! I designed it after all!" I gasped back, discovering that the mask actually gave me some of the Elvin characteristics, including the sort of arrogance for which they were renowned in the oldest legends of Elf folk. More modern stories tell you how beautiful they were and make them out to be nice, but, as I was discovering as the Elf in me awoke, they weren’t that nice at all! Even my voice was changing as I asked how I could remove it and Barbara reminded me that I had to think removal. I concentrated and suddenly I was removing a limp piece of latex like material from my face.

"Wow," I gasped, "That was amazing, but this might be a dangerous mask to sell! We really don’t want to many Elves wandering about and this might just release enough of them!"

"Well reasoned, and better said!" came the voice of the Boss from the door, he held out a hand and said, "Allow me to see it please?"

I handed the mask to him and he studied it with interest. "Hmmm, yes, I believe we can modify it slightly to remove the nature of the beasts or at least moderate it." He smiled as he handed it back to me adding, "Well done indeed, you have a very natural and useful talent for this. Now ladies, if I may have your attention, I have a special contract for you to work on."

This turned out to be a contract to provide the costumes for an "alien" extra terrestrial type person. The specification required a humanoid form, preferably not carnivorous and could be male, female or hermaphrodite. One strange requirement was that the body should have tentacles for arms and the genitalia should include this feature as well.

I gave this some thought and then made a list of attributes I thought such a being should have. These included it being an amphibian, possibly mammalian as are the whales, and possibly having an exoskeleton. Barbara persuaded me to drop that last one and we focussed on creating an amphibian being capable of existing on land for extended periods. I created a trial design and we showed this to the Boss.

"Yes," he nodded, studying the model Barbara had made from my drawings, "I think that has great potential. You have a great talent for this my dear," he added with a smile to me. "May I suggest a small modification? It would seem logical to me that these creatures could very well be hermaphroditic. It would also seem logical that the male organ should be a rather special tentacle, don’t you agree?"

"Er, yes," I thought about it and realised that this had very interesting potential, "I guess it could be done quite easily. Do you want to see more designs?"

"No my dears," he smiled, "I think you can be left to do the rest without me. Oh, you had better have the reproducing device make up two complete sets. Set them for a maximum of two wears each."

"Two wears Boss?" queried Barbara, "but that will mean that on the second wearing……"

"Quite so! They are for a client who has some unusual ideas about the perfect form. Should she and her partner like them on the trial, they will wish to adopt the form permanently." He smiled sadly, and shook his head, "I expect that sooner, rather than later, there will be strange stories of unusual beasts inhabiting some lakes or islands somewhere!"

It took longer than I thought to design and adjust the sexual organs for these strange creatures, fictions of my imagination as they were and therefore limited by what I was capable, with Barbara’s help, of dreaming up. Eventually we were both satisfied that what we had designed would work and set in motion the process which would result in the production of the finished suits. As it was also quitting time by now and the process was a long one, due in part to the complexity of the design, we set it to automatic and packed up for the night.

After a visit to the flat to change and bathe I joined Barbara on a tour of the nightlife. It was a new experience for me to be hit on by just about every male we encountered and after a while it palled! I began to realize just what a pretty girl has to live with – all most of these guys wanted was to get my knickers off and get on top for their 30 second hit! As we had toned down our outfits quite a bit for the evening. I was wearing a perfectly respectable pair of smart slacks, neat blouse and bolero jacket with a simple necklace and ear rings with only a neat pair of ankle boots on my feet, I really couldn’t see what all the excitement was about. Barbara laughed when I said as much, adding, "Don’t tell me you never tried it on with every pretty girl you had the good fortune to meet? I know I did!"

"Well," I grinned, "Yes, OK, so I did try to attract some of the ladies I met from time to time – but, I didn’t make a bloody pest of myself like some of these guys!"

"Price you pay for the looks sweetheart," she replied, "You ended up looking like a real stunner so now you get the attention!"

"I don’t see you getting any less," I retorted, "and if we’re going to talk about stunning, you seem to me to have plenty to offer in that department!"

We both laughed about this and decided to find ourselves a nice quiet place to enjoy a meal. The post-prandial activities resulted in us sharing the bed in my flat for the remainder of the night.

The next morning we found the completed suits in the studio when we arrived. Barbara rang the Boss and asked what we should do with them and was told to bring them up to his suite at 11. As there was another commission for us to work on, she put the suits aside, carefully folded into large containers and we got down to our next creation. Barbara called the Boss’s office and told Diana his secretary that they were ready. Putting down the phone she turned to me with a grin and said, "We’re to take them up at 1030! The client will be collecting them and wants to meet us." She grinned, "we may even get to see them in use! That will be something!"

She was right. It was something else to see the middle aged clients turned into these strange and rather alien creatures by the suits, but they were delighted with them. The Boss suggested that they try them for the rest of the day in our ‘recreation area’ – in reality the private rooms set aside for anyone wishing to try out a new design or a new ‘existence’. This was an offer they accepted with alacrity once it was pointed out that it had a large pool for their use.

I was curious to know how it felt to have tentacles instead of arms, but too shy to ask directly. I was instead saved from asking by one of the pair commenting that once they had mastered the art of using them properly there was no way they would want to have anything else! This gave me the opening to ask if they were flexible enough. The reply was a positive "yes" and a laugh as they demonstrated this by entwining them around and over each other in a complex knot. I found myself wondering how I could experiment with this for myself and Barbara if the opportunity arose.

"Well, my dears," remarked the Boss once our clients had withdrawn to the recreation area, "Congratulations are in order. Now I have another commission for you. A movie company has a need for a range of mythical beasts. I would like the preliminary designs by the end of the week."

"OK Boss," I replied, "Are there any special animals or just whatever comes up?"

"No, I think we should stay with the usual ones from the Greek Mythology don’t you? So many interesting designs from the Minotaur through to the Satyr! Ah! Just one prohibition my dears! Under no circumstances will there be a Circe or a Medusa!" He made the last point emphatically and we nodded our understanding.

As we made our way back to the studio, my mind was already busy with the list of mythological beasts I could recall and the sort of look I could give each. Barbara broke in on my thoughts with a question, "I wonder why not a Circe or a Medusa?"

"Because Circe was a Goddess who changed people and was rather unpredictable about it. And she had a nasty temper to boot! Medusa had snakes for hair and turned those who looked at her to stone!" I shot her a glance, "Not nice types at all and with the nature of the stuff we make – it could all too easily become real!"

"Um! I hadn’t thought that through!" shuddered Barbara, "Right! No Circe and definitely no Medusa!"

Up in the Boss’s suite Mr John Wellington-Welles watched the pair of designers as they made their way to the studio in his mirrored desk and smiled. He liked apprentices who could think for themselves and his latest ‘convert’ was showing herself to be very talented indeed. He had great hopes for her future – and great plans for it too!

 

(To be continued)

 

 

© 2001
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