THE THING
by Trina Varriale

The young man sat across from me in my office. He was looking at the nameplate on my desk, "Trina Varriale, CEO".

"So Zack, you've applied to be a Test Subject with us. I see you're new in Los Angeles, is that right?"

"Yes, Ms. Varriale. Things just haven't worked out well back East for me. California still has this reputation of being the land of opportunity; and if not, at least the weather is a lot better."

I laughed. "Well, that is certainly true. The fact that you are new here is a good thing.  There's a lot of secrecy around what we do--exciting new products that others would love to steal--so having few friends or family around is a good thing. Anyway, your application is in order and I think you would be a fine candidate. The salary was in our announcement; you know that the duration is open-ended for the right person. Do you have any questions?"

"Well, you haven't told me anything about what I'll be testing. I know there are lots of secrets, but can you give me a hint?"

"Of course. I'll tell you that the first product has to do with weight loss. It's a special corset, used with special food supplements, that can help anyone, man or woman, greatly improve their shape.  As you can guess, that kind of product can get a lot of attention here in LA.  And as goes LA, so goes the body-sculpting world."

I smiled as he looked down at his tummy. He had a very slender frame, which was one thing that made him the right person. But he had put on some weight, so we had the makings of good Before/After photos.

He looked up, really catching my eyes for the first time. "Ms. Varriale, this looks like a good fit for me. I really need the money, and losing some of this flab should help me restart my life here as well. I hope you'll take me, and I can start right away."

I got up, leaned over and shook his hand. "Welcome to Varrialabs, Zack. I have some papers for you to sign; the usual HR stuff. If you can come back tomorrow morning, we'll get you started! My research team has been waiting for this, and I know they'll be excited when I tell them we have our test subject."

I put the forms in front of him; the usual W-4 tax form, non-disclosure agreement and a contract. As I figured, he didn't read any of them; just signed and dated each one where I pointed. His eyes seemed to lock on to my long fingernail as I did so; I wasn't surprised. He would be just perfect.

THE FIRST DAY

I arrived early to the building and went directly down to Research. This was going to be a really big day for them; I was glad to see the staff had arrived even earlier. Of course, they wanted to impress me, but they really were excited about getting this test started.

"Good morning, boss!" said Sandra, the scientist heading up this project. "We're all ready to go."

I stepped forward and shook her hand, and smiled at her and her team. "Zack, our subject, should be here in a little while. I told him 8:30, and I'd be really surprised if he came late." I looked up at a monitor showing our front door surveillance camera. "In fact, there he is now. I'll go greet him."

I met him in the lobby.  "Welcome to your first day, Zack! I promise an interesting time for you."

We shook hands. "Thanks Ms. Varriale. Can you tell me where I should go?"

"First, you're one of our family now. Most of my staff either calls me 'Boss' or 'Miss Trina.'  I like either one of those."

"Of course, Miss Trina." (I DO like how that sounds!)

I led him from the lobby and back to the Research lab, and introduced him to Sandra. "Let's get him fitted with the corset right away, Sandra. I know how anxious you all are to find out how well our process works after all this time!"

I stood back and let Sandra take over. She had him step into a cubicle for some privacy and strip, and then put on some drawstring boxer shorts we had in there. He looked a little embarassed when he came out. "Don't worry, Zack. As I said, we're all family here."

One of the technicians came over to us with a flat white box, and I motioned for her to give it to me. I set it on the counter and opened it, and then lifted out our prized prototype, the Vixen Corset.

Zack gasped, and I smiled.  The corset was made of shining black rubber, with boning all the way around it. It was just for the waist so it could be worn by either a man or woman; it was not like a bustier. There were no fastenings down the front; a unique sealing closure ran down the center of the back of it.

"Isn't it beautiful, Zack?" He nodded and replied "I've never worn anything like that before, Miss Trina!  Will it really fit around me?"

"Yes of course, because we designed it for someone who starts out as your size, Zack. It is going to be remarkably comfortable when you wear it." I handed the corset to Sandra. "Turn and face away from her, Zack, and she'll put it around you."

Sandra did exactly that, wrapping the corset around Zack's waist and then fastening the connector in back. It compressed Zack's tummy fat a little bit, so came down his torso as an almost-straight cylindrical shape. "It does feel good, Miss Trina!" said Zack. "I'm amazed."

"Is it all done up properly, Sandra?" "Yes Boss; all set."

I reached back into the white box, and pulled out a small device. "This is the remote control for the corset, Zack. It will stimulate your body to very gently burn off its excess fat. It may feel just a tiny bit warm at first, but in preliminary tests even that feeling disappeared very soon. I want you tell me if you feel ANYTHING when I turn the corset on."

I pressed the button and a small red LED came on at the top center of the corset. "I think I do feel something, Boss. It's kind of...nice, really." He blushed a little.

"All good, Zack. Now the other part of our process involves a regimen of food supplements. We've made it very easy for our future customers; just one in the morning and one at bedtime. We have to be very careful to control and record your test, so we'll be giving you your supplements one at a time. Here's your first one."

I gave Zack a capsule and a tech handed him a glass of water, and he took his first "supplement." ("Why the quotes," you ask? You'll find out soon enough.) "Now follow me, Zack." I led him to the back of the laboratory, opened a door, and motioned him inside.

The room was furnished like a hospital room, with a hospital bed, a dresser and counters. "This is your room, Zack," I told him. "Sometimes the treatments might make you sleepy and you'll want to lie down, so this is your own space. You are free to come in here anytime you like." I pointed to a TV hanging on the wall, and handed him the remote. "We've got every cable channel you can imagine, plus the streaming services. And Alexa can play you any kind of music you like." I pointed to the small black cylinder on the nightstand.

"Am I going to be living here, Boss?" he asked. "Yes at the beginning, Zack. We'll be monitoring you very closely. And there's no real reason for you to go home; we'll be controlling your diet, and making sure you exercise. It is a very complete, all-encompassing program, and we have to duplicate it exactly with you. Now, is there anything else you need?"

He looked around, and then blushed a little. "Could I have some of my clothes from home, Miss Trina?  I would certainly feel more comfortable than walking around in my underwear."

I laughed. "Of course! I'll have one of the staff take you back to your apartment. In fact, I'll send two of them along, and one can drive your car back here. We'll also clean anything perishable out of your fridge, so you won't have to worry about that either." I turned and called out into the lab, "Would someone please bring Zack his clothes? And I need two of you to drive him home and back."

They brought his clothes, he changed and they left, and I had Sandra follow me back to my office.

"Are your people all ready for this?" I asked her after closing my door. "Oh yes, Miss Trina. Zack won't feel a thing today--that supplement really was just some vitamins we got from the drugstore--but the one we give him tonight will really start things off preparing his system for the effects of the corset. I guarantee you we'll see a difference tomorrow already."

I smiled. "Best luck to all of us, Sandra! If this is successful, we'll revolutionize the weightloss industry! We are all going to be very, VERY rich."

My staff returned with Zack late in the afternoon. They took pictures and measurements of every part of his body, along with other vital signs. This was the benchmark we would start from.

He retired to his room after dinner and his evening supplement, and then I went home as well. I could hardly wait for morning.

THE PROCESS BEGINS

I arrived early once again, and my staff had Zack in front of a full-length mirror and were doing a waist measurement. Sandra motioned me over. "I can hardly believe it, Boss. He lost TWO INCHES overnight!" I looked at him, as he was looking at himself. The corset was plainly tighter; where yesterday it was straight down the sides of his waist, today there was a noticeable concave curve.

"Miss Trina, this is amazing! I feel fine, but look at me! How could it work this fast?"

"We're burning off the easy fat first, Zack; kind of the 'low-hanging fruit' in this process. But Yes, it's pretty incredible. Just know that it may slow down after a while, as the corset has to go deeper to slim you down."

I retired to my office. Things could NOT be better. The corset was working perfectly; interacting with the "supplement"--actually a unique combination of nutrients and chemicals that were quietly attacking the fat cells in Zack's body.  There were no actual "drugs" anywhere in the supplement--that kept us away from trouble with the FDA--but the combination was very powerful.

The next several days were about the same; each morning I went in and found our Zack a bit thinner than the day before. The staff was keeping him busy with measurements, exercises (none of which were needed, but they held down the boredom) and meals. We had computer games for him as well; turned out he was quite the gamer and enjoyed showing off to the staff as he blew things up on the screen.

BLACK FRIDAY

My phone awoke me from a sound sleep. "It's 2AM, Sandra! This better be important!"

I heard her take a deep breath. "It really is, boss. You have to come NOW! The corset is.. well.. going crazy and Zack is panicking. We gave him a sedative shot; he didn't like that but it calmed him down. Please, get down here!"

I hung up, threw on some clothes and broke records (and some laws) driving to Varriallabs. I ran into the lab and could not believe what I was seeing...

There was Zack. He was lying flat on a table, passed out in a drugged sleep. The staff had stripped him naked except for the corset. And the corset had tightened drastically overnight.

"How thin is he, Sandra?" I gasped. "He's down to 20 inches, Miss Trina," she replied. "It was 22 when I called you; that was less than an hour ago. I have no idea when or if it will stop.  The remote control doesn't do a thing; it just keeps going."

I got closer. I could FEEL that the corset was warm, far warmer than it should ever be in normal operation. "Do we have any idea what happened?"

Sandra shook her head. "We've downloaded all the internal logs and are analyzing them for some software malfunction. We've got blood tests running to see if there was anything wrong in a supplement. So hopefully we'll find out the WHY of this! But in the meantime, what do we do with Zack? He's so thin that, if he stands up, he would probably BREAK!"

An engineer ran in, holding a laptop. "I found it, Sandra! It IS a software glitch, and we've fixed it. More important, I've got a way to STOP the corset from shrinking any further but without stopping the other changes in his body to accommodate his new shape. He would die if we don't make sure those keep going."

"DO IT!" That came from me. He plugged the USB cable from the laptop into the side of the corset and hit a few keys. We waited a few seconds and he reported "The corset is responding properly, Miss Trina. You should feel it getting much cooler in the next few seconds." We stood close to Zack, and I held my hand an inch from his tiny waist. Sure enough, the heat was fading; he was going to be OK... or as OK as could be."

I stepped back. It was damage control time; this news could NOT get out or Varriallabs was finished.

"Sandra, gather anyone who knows ANYTHING about this project. Right here. Five minutes. GO!"

It only took them three; this was a tightly-run program, and only eight including me actually knew what this project was about. In that three minutes, I knew what we had to do.

"OK team, we have to make lemonade out of this lemon we have here. There are going to be several things that must ALL happen at once, or we are all dead meat. You all have stock options in Varriallabs, so this is about YOUR futures, not just mine."

"First, keep Zack sedated, but change to the drug that increases the brain's receptivity to hypnosis.  We are going to create and start playing some hypnotic audio programs to him, which will erase most of his memories and make him pliable; even make him enjoy what he is becoming. We've done experiments in that before; who was part of that?" Two staffers raised their hands. "Good. You're on that."

"Next, this is obviously no longer a weight loss project! Instead, we have created our first Universal Test Subject. Zack, from now on, is a single human on which we will test ALL of our body modification processes and devices. We have other projects out there, and they will all become a part of the new Zack."

Sandra smiled and said "The next things are those beautiful cyberbreasts, Boss. Not implants; they really ARE complete breasts! Those are almost ready to go now."

I nodded. Then Zack can't be Zack anymore. For lack of something better, let's start using the pronoun "It," and It's name is THING." Everyone gasped at that; it seemed extreme, but there was no doubt in my mind it was the best thing to do. We had to dehumanize the...thing...we were creating.

Sandra spoke up again. "Boss, what we have to do immediately is fix It's back!  Take a look." She crouched down next to the counter, and ran her arm under the corset. "There's almost nothing there to help support It's waist. We have to do something NOW before It..." she shuddered before she said "...breaks in half."

"Do you have an idea?" I asked. "Yes. We can inject epoxy into It's spine, at every joint. In essence, we'll be encasing the entire spine in the stuff, so It will be completely rigid. The corset has to stay on her, of course, but we can do this without removing it."

"DO IT," was my response. "OK, next. Who took Zack home last week?" Two raised their hands. "TONIGHT, LATE, you go back over there. Take all papers, computers, anything that looks personal. Wear gloves, and do NOT be seen or heard. Zack is going to cease to exist, but we'll need to make sure all those loose ends are covered. I think he probably took a long sabbattical, maybe to Madagascar? We'll see."

"Any questions, anyone?" Nobody said a word. "Actually, if you don't have questions, you're asleep. I have them too, but we just can't answer them all right now. You all have your jobs. Let's go!"

I love watching my staff scurry at my command; it may be the best thing about having worked my way to the top of a company with my name on the door. But this time, there was an urgency we had never seen before; it was going to be life or death for Variallabs.

DAMAGE CONTROL

The next days were a flurry of activity around Varriallabs. Thing (which really is what we called it now) stayed in it's room with a constant drip of a very special anesthetic; it had to be just enough to keep it from awakening, but allow It's brain to absorb the hypnotic programming being fed into It's headphones. The corset had indeed stopped shrinking--at a waist size of 14 inches--and the internal body changes (organs had resized and moved out of that tiny waist) were complete and successful.

In the meantime, one of my techs had cracked Zack's computer and selected a few people that really did need to be contacted about where he had gone. It was obvious that he had been a pretty troubled individual, and nobody seemed to think it odd that he was taking some far-away time off. While we were at it, we cleaned out his bank accounts and paid his bills (he was heavily in debt as well; Varriallabs took care of all that).

The epoxy injections were VERY complicated. Sandra did these herself; some actually had to be done with a needle right through the corset, and that required an engineer in the room to show Sandra exactly where she could push the needle without damaging the microcircuitry. We waited 24 hours after she was done (I gave her the rest of the day off); then we VERY carefully lifted Thing up. We had to hold her vertical (since it was sedated), but it was clear that the spine was not going to break.

But we had another surprise. The corset truly had squeezed the spine, and the Thing's legs were now useless. We had a brief consultation and Sandra used the same epoxy to lock the hips, knees and feet. The Thing was going to have to be mounted on a rolling stand to be moved around. I brought in our hypnosis team and they added this to their programming; our Thing would have to be perfectly happy as, essentially, a mannequin.

The spinal damage had also cut off most of the blood supply to Zack's penis, but it was a very easy matter to just encase it in a small steel sphere. The female staff all agreed that it was never much of a penis anyway.

WE AWAKEN THE THING

Three weeks had passed. Thing was now standing vertically, ramrod-straight, mounted on wheels. We had dressed it, head to toe, in a shining black rubber suit so it looked like the piece of equipment that it had become. Anyone seeing Thing, in fact, would have no idea there was anything human inside.

We timed the sedation to gradually awaken Thing in the mid-morning, when all of us would be around. Our big question was, what would be it's first words? What would it do? How would it respond to its new life? It was the hypnosis team that was on the line for this one; even though we had been watching the brain waves changing over those weeks, there was no way to really know.

We watched, as Thing's breathing began to change from the deep, rhythmic breathing of the drugged sleep. After maybe 15 excruciating minutes, it opened its eyes and looked around. I was standing right in front of it. It looked right at me.

"Good morning, Mistress Trina." I think it smiled. I know I did, especially hearing how the team had modified what the Thing would call me from now on.

"Good morning. Do you know your name?"

"Yes, I am Thing."

"And do you know why you are here?"

"Yes, I am a universal test subject drone. I exist for you to test devices that will improve the human condition."

"Do you know where you are, Thing?"

"I am Here, Mistress Trina. Wherever I am, I am Here."

I stepped back from Thing, and began to applaud; the entire staff joined me. "Well done, everyone!  It's a new dawn for Varriallabs!"

I turned to Sandra. "What are the next devices to test, Sandra?"

"Boss, we have two things ready right away. The first are the breasts we talked about before; those get bonded to the outside of the body, and we connect them into the nervous and other systems to join them permanently. Once complete, they will function exactly like a human female breast, but be any size the wearer orders. The ones we have for Thing are very large; we want to test the biggest we think we'll ever make.  We may start calling Thing a 'she' if we're not careful."

"And we also have some robotic arms, Miss Trina. These will be removable; they can be traded out for special ones that are very strong, or very precise, or look like normal human arms and hands. We have to surgically remove Thing's arms at the shoulders; we will cover the mounting hardware with stainless steel plates that will stay when the arms are removed."

"Sounds perfect, Sandra." I turned to the staff. "These new products should be ready for production in the next few months. I'm afraid we have to put the corset on the back burner for a while; the new items will make us some money first."

I turned back to Thing. "My dear Thing, I'll take you back to your room, where you will live. My staff will connect your feeding tubes to you, as well as the sensors that will always monitor your health. You are a very valuable member of our family, and we will all care for you."

"Thank you Mistress Trina. Your Thing awaits your commands."

I rolled the Thing to a large closet and my staff plugged it in, turned off the lights and closed the door.  It would be perfectly happy there until we needed It again.

EPILOGUE

The original failed experiment became the greatest triumph in our history. The availability of a permanent test subject allowed us to move new products out to the marketplace far faster than anyone else. Even the weight loss corset program became a reality; we created a new company to provide the equipment and services in complete privacy; our confidential list of clients includes some of the most beautiful (and handsome) bodies in the world.

We did have to do another live test before we could release it, though. And I can tell you, my new Vice President Sandra has never looked better.