AgeArts 3D Comics

Series commissioned by Areat, originally published on my Patreon.

The reality of what was happening finally sunk in when they put Chuck in chains.

“Is this really necessary?” he asked.

“Yes,” Dr. Wolff replied. “You need to appear to be a criminal being transferred to death row. We can’t have you showing up to the prison in your business suit.”

Chuck had already traded in his business suit for an orange uniform with the word PRISONER printed on the back in big black letters. Now, they were attaching a waist chain, handcuffs, leg irons, and something called a blue box.

“Just don’t make them too tight,” he requested as they cuffed his wrists. They showed mercy and left him a little slack.

“Come on,” the doctor said, leading him out of the locker room where he had stored all of his belongings. Chuck shuffled along behind her, being careful not to lose his balance. With his body this tied up, he doubted he could keep from hurting himself if he fell.

“Is it too late to say I’ve changed my mind?” he asked, only half joking.

Dr. Wolff just looked back at him with a smirk, which he realized was not an answer.

Chuck asked, “So, who’s the philosopher on the project?”

Dr. Wolff said, “What do you mean?”

“‘Tabula Rasa?’” Chuck said. “John Locke? I almost minored in philosophy in college. I suppose you’re about to resolve the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate.”

“Understanding human nature is as simple as understanding a computer,” the doctor said. “We are programmed to be who we are through our experiences. If we edit the programming, we change who we are.”

“Sounds a bit too simple,” Chuck said. “What about biology?”

“We’re working on rewriting that as well.”

“Changing out the software and hardware, then?”

“Exactly.”

“Reminds me of this old hammer my grandpa used to have. He said he’d had it for decades. All he had to do was replace the head three times and the handle four times. I told him that it was not the same hammer anymore. He said, it had to be since he had never replaced the whole thing at once.”

Dr. Wolff looked behind herself at Chuck, “Are you worried that you won’t be the same after this?”

“A little bit,” Chuck admitted. “But, like you said, experiences change us. That’s how we grow up, I guess.” A thought came to Chuck. “Have you ever done this before?”

“We’ve performed the procedure over a dozen times at this point.”

“No,” Chuck said. “I mean, have you ever only done half the procedure, changing the body but not the mind?”

“We have not,” She said, “which is why I’m going to be personally observing this time.”

The doctor opened a door to the parking lot, and Chuck slowly followed her outside. There was a police car parked there with a uniformed officer standing outside of it, waiting for them to arrive. He opened the door to the back seat and said, “This way.” Chuck followed his directions. He was ready to follow any directions at that point. He let the officer lead his head as he stumbled into the car, and then the officer put on Chuck’s seatbelt and shut the door.

Dr. Wolff got into the front passenger seat of the police car, and the officer got in and put the car in gear. As they drove off, Chuck looked back at the Arvaxis Pharmaceuticals building and felt uneasy knowing that he was leaving all traces of his normal life behind there. He just hoped he would get them back soon.

***

Dr. Wolff left Chuck at the prison intake room. From there, he was treated as a normal prisoner being transferred into the building. The guards had him sign forms and submitted him to a humiliating search. Then, he was led down a series of corridors, sometimes in full view of the general population of the prison, over to a prison cell in which he was locked inside alone.

There he waited for a long time, getting gradually more worried that he might have been forgotten or misplaced. As he stared out of the bars, he wondered if he could handle actually being in a prison. He had so casually handed over his freedom, and now he started to wonder if it would be worth the rewards later on.

To his relief, Dr. Wolff eventually showed up with a guard and a gurney much like the one Chuck had seen in the video. Clearly, it was time. The guard unlocked his cell, and the doctor politely asked Chuck to climb onto the gurney. Then, they strapped him to it and wheeled him through the prison.

As the big moment approached, he started to worry about the physical transformation. Somehow, he had managed to avoid thinking about what he was actually about to do and what he was about to become. He tried to remember what it had been like to be 8 years old, but he struggled to think of any concrete memories of that age. He remembered playing sports and games: baseball, soccer, tag, hide and seek… He wondered if kids still played hide and seek. He doubted if he could even properly pretend to be a kid. It had been decades since he had been one. Would he stand out as acting too mature—like too much of an adult?

Maybe this had all been a big mistake. Maybe he should just back out. If he said he changed his mind, they would let him go, right? He had made a drastic choice on the spur of the moment. They would understand if he had second thoughts. He imagined all the ways things could go wrong. What if he ended up too young? Could he die from being too young? What if he got lost somewhere and they could not change him back? What if something happened to his mind just from being a kid even without taking the second drug?

Chuck thought the doctor might be able to reassure him, but when he turned to talk to her, he realized that she was no longer walking next to the gurney. He was alone with the guard now. He began to sweat.

They reached a door and paused there. The guard unlocked the door and opened it, and Chuck saw that inside was the same sterile room from the video. His gurney was wheeled into the room up to the same two nurses he had seen in the video. Although they looked similar enough to be sisters, Chuck could tell them apart by their hair. One was a blonde, and the other was a brunette.

“We got him,” the blonde nurse said to the guard, and he left, locking the door behind him.

“You want to do this one?” the brunette asked her partner.

“Let’s split it up. I’ll do the body. You do the mind. Sound good?”

The brunette smiled. “Nice,” she said. “I love that part. It’s so satisfying.”

Chuck was feeling even more uncomfortable as they talked about him as if he were some toy they were about toss around between them.

The brunette asked, “You want to bet how young he’s going to get? Loser pays for lunch tomorrow?”

“You’re on,” the blonde said. “I say seven.”

“Nah, I think double digits, ten at least,” the brunette said.

“But he’s so skinny,” the blonde said. “No way he’ll be anywhere near middle school after this.”

“Well, we’ll see,” the blonde said. “Let’s do it, then.” She read from her clipboard: “Test subject number… What is it now… 15? Charlie Leon, 28 years old… at the moment. Height: five foot eleven, and weight: 177 pounds.”

Chuck had not been called “Charlie” since he had entered high school. It seemed appropriate to start thinking of himself as Charlie again, considering he would be back at the right age for the name again soon.

He looked over at the mirror on the wall, realizing that there was a camera behind there videotaping all of this. He wondered if Dr. Wolff was behind there as well. Would she step in to save him if something went wrong?

“Sir?” the brunette said, catching his attention. “Mr. Leon, do you understand the procedure and do you willingly give consent to go through with it?”

This was his last chance. It would be so easy to say “no” and call it all off. He realized it would be crazy to go through with it, but then he thought about the new position and the money and everything that would come with it. This was how people got ahead in life, right? They took the big chances. Big rewards come from big risks. How much would he regret it if he backed out now? Probably too much, he decided.

“Yes,” Charlie said at last. “I consent.”

“Right,” the blonde said, picking up the syringe. “First injection coming right up.”

Charlie felt himself tense up as she swabbed his arm and looked for a vein.

“Got a problem with needles?” the brunette asked.

“Kind of,” Charlie admitted.

“Don’t worry,” the blonde said. “The needle hardly hurts at all.”

“That’s a relief,” Charlie said.

“It’s what comes next that’s really painful,” she said, with a smirk.

The needle poked into his arm, and Charlie watched as she pressed the plunger down and felt the cold liquid enter his vein. There was no turning back now, he realized.

The nurses stepped back, and the blonde said, “5:34 p.m. Here we go.”

There was a moment of silence as Charlie waited for something to happen. The anticipation was unbearable, but he felt nothing yet and wondered if the first drug had been a placebo. Maybe the whole thing had been an elaborate practical joke, he thought. Maybe nothing would happen.

Then, he could feel the first hints of a fever coming on. His sweating increased. The room seemed like a sauna that was gradually getting hotter and hotter. He started panting but no amount of heavy breathing or sweating was doing anything to cool him down. He wanted to strip naked and jump into ice water, but he was strapped to the gurney. Soon, the room had become an oven, and his body felt as if it were baking. Then, it felt as though it were melting.

He groaned and moaned, his breath feeling like dragon flames. His skin boiled, as he shut his eyes against the pain. A steaming cloud surrounded him. His whole body felt as though it were cooking, straight down to his aching bones. Then, he felt those bones begin to contract as the boiling flesh around them tightened and pulled at them.

He thought he would die and began to hope he would, death being a welcome way to escape the pain.

Through all the pain, he sensed himself shrinking. He could hear his voice getting higher with each moan. The gurney seemed to move beneath him as his clothes seemed to expand on him. It seemed like he would melt away into nothing, like an ice cube dropped onto hot pavement. And, just when the pain became too much, just when he thought he would cry out and beg someone to kill him, the unbearable heat began to dissipate. As the pain died down, he became even more aware of the shrinking feeling as it slowed to a halt. It felt so wrong, so foreign. He realized that everyone knew what it felt like to grow, but only a few people knew what it felt like to shrink. Now, he was one of those people.

His body felt stable again. The heat was gone, and the shrinking had ceased. He kept his eyes shut, though, as he waited for his strength to return.

“Looks like I win,” he heard the blonde say.

“Ugh,” he heard the brunette reply. “You’re right. He’s tiny.”

“Not our smallest, thought.”

“No, that one looked like he would need diapers.”

“He is cute, though.”

“Yeah, a little angel this one.”

“Check him to see if he’s ready for part two.”

“Charlie,” the brunette called to him gently. “Wake up.”

Charlie cracked his eyes open.

“How’re you feeling, little guy?” the brunette asked as she leaned over him. Charlie recoiled in terror beneath her as she loomed above him like a giant. “By the way, don’t try to move. You might get hurt.”

“…or spanked,” the blonde added with a slight chuckle.

Charlie was too terrified to do anything but stare at the enormous women.

“Cat got your tongue?” the blonde asked. “Come on, Charlie, say something for us. Let’s hear that sweet little voice.”

He managed to open his mouth out of fear of what they might do if he did not respond. “What do you want me to say?” Charlie asked, but the last word came out sounding more like “thay.” His little tongue probed his front teeth and found a couple of them were missing, which explained his slight lisp.

“Aw,” the brunette said. “How adorable!”

“He sure is,” the blonde said and turned to Charlie. “Right then, we’re ready for the last step now, but before we finish up. One question,” she handed the second syringe over to the brunette and said, “How does it feel, Charlie? You’re going to forget this all in a minute, so you might as well give us an honest report while you can still remember the experience. What was the change like, and how do you feel right now?”

“It was painful,” he said, feeling weirded out hearing his high little voice.

“One of the guys said it felt like being a roast turkey,” the brunette said.

“It thucked,” he lisped, forgetting his missing teeth.

“I bet it did,” the brunette said.

“Well,” the blonde said. “5:38 p.m. I think it’s time for the second injection.”

The brunette swabbed a clean spot on his skinny little arm and poked in the needle. “I don’t know what you’ve done,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper in his ear. “But, I’m glad it hurt. It’s probably better than you deserve, you little shit.” She pushed down the plunger. “Now, say ‘bye bye’ to your mind.”

Charlie was shocked to hear her talk to him like that, but he was too terrified of the giant women to respond. They just stood back and watched, and he realized that they were waiting for him to react to the second injection. He closed his eyes and tried to act like he was in pain. He squirmed and tensed his muscles, and then he went limp as if he had passed out.

He waited, hoping his performance had been convincing.

“Charlie,” the blonde said. “Wake up.”

He blinked his eyes opened and tried to look confused. “Where am I?” he asked, innocently.

“You’re in a hospital.” the blonde said. “But, I’m afraid you and your family were in a terrible accident.”

“What?” he asked. “Where are they?”

“I’m sorry, Charlie,” the brunette replied. “You’re mom and dad were hurt too badly. They died. They’re gone.”

“I’m sorry,” the blonde added.

Much like earlier in the day when he had watched the video of Edgar’s transformation, Charlie found himself fighting back tears, only this time, he realized he was losing the battle. A stream of warm tears flowed silently down his sweaty cheeks, punctuated only by an occasional sniffle.

Something about the tears reawoke ancient memories of childhood. He had tried to remember the happy times before, but those were vague experiences not strongly etched in memory. It was the hard times that had been drawn most clearly, he realized. He remembered crashing his bike and needing stitches. He remembered losing his first fistfight and walking home with a bloody nose. He remembered more recent memories as well: him standing in front of a pair of graves, dressed in black, feeling his heart twisting in his chest…

Charlie began to sob.

He was only vaguely aware that the gurney was moved out of the room as he cried like the little boy he now appeared to be.

“You did well,” Dr. Wolff said from somewhere nearby as the gurney came to a stop. “That was very convincing. Now, let’s get you ready for the orphanage.”

Chapter 3