Secrets of the Immortal Assassin

[tekuno]

Okay, here's the short story I've been mentioning now and then for a few weeks. I finally sat down and finished it. It won't be everyone's cup of tea; it contains muscle theft and gay sex, and is technically a snuff story although once again I didn't sit down and say "boy, I'd love to write a story where people get killed" so it's probably possible to enjoy it anyway even if that isn't your thing. It's certainly a departure for me.

By the way: once I finish up the three -- did I really start that many at once? What was I thinking? -- stories I'm currently doing as serials, I will start on the "happy ending" version of A Word Out of Place. But I've been toying with the idea of doing it in part or completely as comics instead. There are reasons why this might be a bad idea, but it would be interesting. (As with all muscle growth art, there just isn't enough of it which has a narrative element, and even the pieces which exist tend not to go on long enough.) So what I have done is to set up a poll on a separate thread. Please go and read it, and then vote to tell me how the story should be delivered. The poll is here.

Okay, now on to our feature presentation.

-----

Secrets of the Immortal Assassin

The car sped through the blazing desert. Here and there, the ruins of a farmhouse or town reminded the passengers that, just a few centuries earlier, this area had been cool enough to support civilization. Now, nobody came out here -- unless they had a very good reason.

The four men in the car had a very good reason: if they showed their faces in any city again, they would be killed. Either the remaining members of a rival mob would do it, or they might get arrested -- and when there was filmeo evidence of crime, the trial went forward immediately and no appeals were allowed; the execution would happen within days of being caught. Not even the mob's team of researchers had been able to find a way to fake filmeo; it was more reliable than any witness and considered incontrovertible evidence in court. The only thing to do when you saw a filcap was to break it immediately -- except that this, in itself, would be recorded, and rendered you liable for all crimes committed in the area until the machine was replaced.

Of course, filcaps were also incontrovertible proof of innocence, the ultimate alibi. Once again, "Tiger" cursed himself for having misjudged the situation. But what other conclusion could he have come to? The Concord mob had offered to parley with his own contingent from Albany. Naturally, he had suspected a trap, and he and his five lieutenants had walked in with guns blazing. The ease with which he managed to wipe out everyone in the room made him suspicious immediately, but like a fool he hadn't realized the second layer of duplicity -- which meant that the room had no fewer than two filcaps hidden in the ceiling. Later on, he discovered that the other half of the Concord mob had been out on "business", and the whole purpose of the parley had been to arrange an alibi for the people in the room. He smiled grimly, stretching the skin of the scar on his cheek, which pulled the skin around his eye tight and interfered momentarily with his vision. At least he had stymied them there -- those guys would never need an alibi again.

Of course, the fact that there had been four members of a catering company, totally innocent of any involvement with the mob, serving food in the back of the room, absolutely sealed their fate. The police probably wouldn't have cared very much about mafia members getting wiped out, but with absolute evidence of the identities of the murderers of four innocent people, they had no choice but to start a manhunt. Even the crooked cops always said up front that there was nothing they could do if filmeo evidence was available. And two of his five men had been picked off in the days since then: Tony on the first night, and Killer -- ha! -- as they made their escape later that week.

The car raced along the road despite the poor condition of the blacktop. Only the major highways got repaved, this far out in the desert. "Tiger" reflected glumly that this road probably hadn't been repaved since the twenty-third century. Actually, according to history, this part of America was the part that insisted that cutting government spending was a good idea -- which, of course, acted more efficiently to kill the local economy than practically anything else, as all the minor bureaucracy jobs and infrastructure construction shut down, which in turn made people move away until there was no longer a sustainable market for private industry, either. Maybe the paving was even older than that. If the changes in climate hadn't turned this area into a desert, it would still be a dump.

"Tiger" scanned the horizon. Still no other cars in sight, which was good. That was the danger: being out this far meant that there were practically no other people within sight, but anyone who DID show up was probably going to be trouble. To distract himself, he cleared his throat and forced himself into conversation.

"So, any idea how much further?"

"Dunno. The doctor said South-Southwest about a thousand klicks on old route 81, and we'd recognize it when we saw it." That was "Bull", "Tiger"'s little brother, currently driving the car. The two had fled Japan's fizzling economy a decade earlier, when "Tiger" was 18 and "Bull" was 15 -- the melted ice caps had sunk all coastal cities early on, and with so little land to support its population, the country had to pay whatever its suppliers asked for food. "Bull"'s name was unfortunate; although he was a big guy for a Japanese native, even in these days of rationed food supply, in the Americas his build only qualified as "athletic". And besides, he was very handsome, like Tiger had been before he got his scar -- not bull-like at all. But their names were all they had left from their heritage.

"He'd better not have been lying. I got something in reserve if he's double-crossed us."

"Yeh, Boss?" Jack, on the other hand, was genuinely beefy -- absolutely the traditional Mafia enforcer. You could probably make two of "Bull" out of Jack, and even "Tiger", who had taken every opportunity in his life to make himself bigger, was significantly smaller. He comforted himself with the difference in their ages -- twenty years from now, when he was Jack's age, he would be Jack's size, too. Unfortunately, when it came to brains, you could probably make three of Jack out of "Bull", and have enough left over to power a reasonably intelligent dog. On the other hand, an absolute lack of imagination was probably a good thing, considering Jack's usual employment. And the guy was absolutely loyal.

"When we got Tony his hypernode, I had a filcap with me."

"Ooooo, nasty."

"What's the punishment for installing a hacked hypernode? Life?" "Chachi" was the last of "Tiger"'s five lieutenants, and, if "Tiger" had been able to choose, would have been the first one to die in the line of duty. If anything, "Chachi" was bigger even than Jack, but he was also smarter -- dangerously so. And, "Tiger" reflected uncomfortably, he was also younger than Jack, despite his bulk. When he hit Jack's age in about a decade, if he kept growing, he would probably be the biggest man on this side of the continent. His nickname came from a passing resemblance to some character out of an old show, "Tiger" didn't care enough to remember which one. American shows made him tired. Of course, the nickname had been bestowed when he joined the mob at 15; as he had ballooned into his current massive state, the resemblance had fled, but continuing to call him by a name he hated gave the many people who were jealous of his success in the organization a cheap, minor revenge. Only the faintest glint in his eye said that he was keeping track of who used that name and how often, and that someday he would demonstrate his undoubted talents in causing pain on all of them.

"They don't do life imprisonment any more. He'd be interrogated and killed, same as us."

"Cute."

"How do you think I got him to spill the location of this place, anyway? Tea and cookies? If YOU knew of a place that could do plastic surgery and new fingerprints, would you tell anyone?"

"Huh."

"Say, Boss..."

"What?"

"The doctor's assistant said that Nayglery was after us."

"Oh, shit!"

"Huh? Who's Nayglery?"

"Don't you know about Nayglery? Geez. I thought I was the dumb one."

"Yeah, Jack? You're so smart, you tell me who he is."

"Nobody knows. They just say that when Nayglery is after you, you turn up dead. Or you don't turn up at all. They say nobody has ever escaped Nayglery."

"Yeah? Not even with the help we're gonna get? And how did the Concord guys hire him, anyway?"

Chachi cleared his throat. "Well, Boss, they say you can't hire him. He just shows up. And then you're dead."

"Sure, sure. And this super-assassin who is so effective is so famous that I've never heard of him?"

"Look, it ain't my fault if you're too dumb to listen to people. They say Nayglery has been killing people for centuries."

"Sure he has."

"Yeah, they say it started back in the twenty-first century."

"So let me get this straight: nobody has ever seen the guy, his 'kills' are exactly like regular old deaths, and he'd have to be alive for centuries if it were true in the first place? Sounds like some idiots just decided to put a name to a bunch of coincidences."

"So how come people hear the name 'Nayglery' BEFORE the deaths, Boss?"

"Bah. After the fact people always claim they knew it was coming. I bet none of the people who died ever heard the name at all."

"Het, guys, look over there, I bet that's it!"

"Right, a mesa in the middle of a plain like this? Gotta be something important. Head that way, "Bull"."

The car rattled and thumped its way to the enormous formation.

"Now what, "Tiger"?"

"Drive around it. There's gotta be an entrance somewhere. Everyone keep an eye out."

Two thirds of the way around the mesa, there was a slight indentation in the rock.

"Chachi, get out and get a closer look."

"Yes, Boss."

As Chachi approached the wall of the formation, there was a grinding noise, and the indentation rose outward to reveal an entrance to a well-lit downward tunnel. A voice boomed over a speaker system: "Please drive into the tunnel. Do not drive faster than 20 klicks per hour inside, or you will trigger the automated defenses."

Chachi returned to the car. "Do you think we all ought to go in at once? This could be a trap."

"Like we have any alternative? If you're so suspicious, YOU can stand out here in the heat."

Chachi snorted and walked back to the side of the entrance. "Bull" pulled the car into the entryway.

As they drove downward, riding the brake, "Tiger" found himself wondering just how large this facility could be. After twenty minutes, the mild downward slope straightened out. Another ten minutes later, the car arrived at a massive metal gateway, which was closed.

Once again the voice from the speakers spoke. "Please get out of the car and approach the door."

The three men in the car looked at each other. "Bull" turned off the ignition, and they got out.

Jack was the first to fall to the ground. "Bull" turned and ran for the car, shouting "run! it's a trap!". He only got a few meters before he, too, fell.

"Tiger" lasted only slightly longer before everything went black.

When "Tiger" awoke, he was reclining in a white, well-lit room. In front of him, facing the center of the room, were Jack and "Chachi", sitting in what appeared to be dentist's chairs. None of them were tied up -- "Tiger" realized why when he tried to sit up and discovered that his body would not obey him. He couldn't even blink. Undoubtedly his face had the same vacant expression he saw on "Chachi" and Jack's faces.

Suddenly a voice began to speak. From the acoustics, it must have been speaking to him directly through his hypernode. To his surprise, it spoke in flawless, scholarly, high-class Japanese, a language he hadn't heard spoken in educated tones for over eight years.

"Oh, you're conscious. I'm sorry. I'm afraid it's far too late to do anything about that. You'll just have to sit through this process. I really hadn't intended this; your two lieutenants are still asleep, and will probably remain so. You must have gotten a smaller dose of the gas, being further from the door. I don't like unnecessary cruelty."

"What? Their eyes are open!" The sound didn't actually leave "Tiger"'s lips, but the voice in his head seemed to have heard it all the same.

"An unfortunate side-effect. You see, I have taken full control of all traffic to your brains by means of your hypernodes, and every muscle in your bodies, except your hearts and diaphragms, is completely slackened."

"Wait, where's my brother?"

"I'm afraid that your brother is currently... well, very shortly he will cease to exist, in any meaningful sense."

"What are you doing to him?"

"He is being... erased. Or perhaps 'reformatted' might be a better term."

"What?"

The voice sighed. "Really, I wish more criminals were intellectual people. The few times I have had to explain this, the inability of the average thug to keep up has been a serious problem. But since you have awakened, I feel like I owe you an explanation, at least. You may just possibly have heard of a thing called a 'church', yes?"

"Yeah, they used to be all over. You still see the buildings here and there."

"Right. Churches were buildings where people went to practice 'religion'. Although religions varied widely -- your own homeland was one which had its own, known as 'Shinto' -- the basic tenet behind all of them was the concept of a 'soul', a thing which was not, itself, material, but controlled the human body, and sometimes other things."

"Yeh, I've heard of that."

"Ah, good. Well, with advances in neurology, it eventually became apparent to even the stupidest person that the human body was controlled by the human mind, and that the human mind was entirely an emergent property of the human brain, with no non-material components possible. In short, by searching everywhere, scientists proved that there was no place where a soul could control the body. This was the final deathblow to religions as components of society, although for various reasons their influence had been waning for quite a while beforehand. It was appalling how long people tried to hang on to the idea, though. On the other hand, once the flaw became widely known, the swindlers who were the leaders of most churches payed a very stiff penalty for their role in the fraud... but I digress.

"My point is that the mind is effectively the action of the brain. It is for this reason that hypernodes are so very carefully regulated and examined, to ensure that the action of a hypernode can only provide influence on the brain by means of superimposing signals on top of the input of the ordinary senses.

"Or, at least, ordinary, OFFICIAL hypernodes have that property.

"Criminals, on the other hand, prefer to use hacked hypernodes, out of a belief that a hacked hypernode cannot be tracked by law enforcement."

"Are you telling me the damn doctor set us up?!"

"Not exactly. In a certain sense, it is true that a hacked hypernode cannot be detected by the police. But there are other means of tracking than those used by the police, and of course, if one happens to be the designer and manufacturer of hypernodes, one can bypass the usual rule against interference. For example, one could use a hypernode to completely shut off contact between the owner's brain and his body."

"Damn you! Are you telling me that you're the one who designed these hypernodes? But they haven't changed designs for at least a hundred and fifty years! You can't be..."

The voice chuckled. "Yes, I see light is beginning to dawn on you. I am, indeed, the inventor of hypernode technology. I am also, incidentally, the doctor who installed your hypernode."

"What?! That's not possible! I know people who knew him as a child!"

"Allow me to continue. I am also the chief of police of New York, as well as two thirds of their staff. I am the President, the Vice President, and four fifths of Congress. I am also the inventor of filmeo technology, most of the National Academy of Sciences, and the leadership of every country with a population of more than about fifty million people."

"How...?"

"Ah, well, if you really have so little imagination, permit me to enlighten you.

"In 2025, while working on the first hypernode, I discovered a method by which one could overwrite the contents of one human brain with that of another. Since the mind is simply a function of the brain, this would essentially replace one person with another -- new wine in old bottles, to use an old phrase. I found the method entirely by accident, and it is unlikely that anyone else will discover it for some time, since the process has to be completed in less than a fifth of a second and experimentation is entirely unethical.

"Of course, merely turning one person into a copy of another is not terribly useful. The minute you create a copy of someone, the original and the copy begin to have different experiences, which causes their minds to diverge. Furthermore, even the minor differences in internal chemical balance and general health which you would expect in, say, a pair of twins, would cause the two minds to diverge even if they were sleeping. To put it bluntly, no matter how many copies you make, you cannot keep the same person in two different bodies.

"But I also had a loophole -- the hypernodes. By means of hypernodes, the two brains could be linked, which would permit the two minds to continuously update each other, preventing them from diverging. In effect, with a pair of hypernodes properly installed, the two copies would become one larger mind.

"Unfortunately, the process would only work, I could see, on living brains. And although you may not believe it, considering what I have said, I really do not like to kill people.

"And therefore, by incredible diligence, I found someone who had committed suicide, but had succeeded only in turning themselves into a vegetable, and managed to convince the police to permit me to be the attending doctor because of the proximity of my new laboratory -- a location I had chosen carefully -- to the site of the attempt. Naturally, once I was sure that the mind was completely gone, I wasted no time in copying my own mind into the broken body, and linked the new body to my own. The local press was duly impressed with the miraculous recovery, against medical opinion, and dismayed by the way that, upon release, the rescued suicide vanished entirely. He was presumed dead -- in fact, I made sure to have a corpse which washed ashore identified as the body in question. I really didn't have much choice, since there was no way I could convince everyone that I was the suicide, who had in fact succeeded in killing himself if you use a sufficiently broad definition of the term.

"In reality, of course, this second body began a constant research and development program. Over the next ten years, I managed to rescue thousands of suicides. I even developed a way to read memories out of a nearly-dead mind, so that most of them were able to retain their original external identities even after I had, so to speak, moved in.

"I also found a way to link my mind to a computer. In truth, I am a cyborg in a way which science fiction writers generally do not apply the term. The programs I use are, ultimately, much slower than a normal brain, but since I can afford to throw many orders of magnitude as much hardware at the problem as necessary to ameliorate the speed problem, I have more spare brainpower available at all times than most people achieve during a month of concentrated labor.

"By the time of the death of my original body, I had an international presence, which is why I can speak to you, now, in your own tongue. I do not wish to brag, but my mind was so far superior to that of an ordinary person, and I had access to so many different identities, all acting simultaneously, that taking over the seats of power was not at all difficult. There has not been an election of any importance for the last two and a half centuries in which either of the two leading candidates was not, in fact, me. It was actually a natural outcome of my existence -- I can arrange for any particular one of my identities to live a life of perfect, unimpeachable probity, while at the same time using my other identities to ensure that any ethically questionable situations which might arise are safely resolved before they become an issue."

"You monster!"

"On the contrary, I am the savior of mankind. It is only through my influence that the species continues to exist in significant numbers. When the release of methane under the Russian tundra began to trigger serious climate change, I only barely had enough power to avert a nuclear exchange over possession of Antarctica and Greenland, which would have killed most of the world's population and any hope of actually solving the problems. I regard it as my greatest achievement that, despite humanity's continuous attempts at self-genocide, I have managed to keep the non-me population over two billion, most of them reasonably happy much of the time, while at the same time transitioning everyone to a sustainable lifestyle. The most accurate predictor of the effects of global warming at the beginning of the twenty-first century, James Lovelock, believed that the maximum post-warming global population would be only one tenth of that number, and I must say that, without my abilities, he would almost certainly have turned out to be correct. Call me a parasite if you like, but at least I am one with a symbiotic role.

"Of course, in order to keep the peace, I needed a reliable, incorruptible police force as well as control of lawmakers. The old police in almost every country were terrible -- more concerned with keeping up appearances than actually enforcing the law, constantly open to bribery, repeatedly using violence to enforce their personal prejudices... and so I put a lot of my selves into the police force. It wasn't difficult to take over, since a large percentage of those seeking to join the force at the time were thugs and idiots. In nearly any competitive examination, my candidates were always at the top. In fact, I had to deliberately make extra mistakes to avoid arousing suspicion, at least until the public began to get used to the idea of police who were not essentially a government-licensed street gang.

"Which, of course, brings me to you.

"It is useful to me to leave a certain amount of crime around. Crime exists only because I permit it. I have enough computerized intelligence that I could, if I desired, monitor every single person on the planet by way of their hypernodes and arrest every criminal within minutes. And, of course, since effectively all mafia members have my 'hacked' hypernodes, I could simply cripple you all within seconds by cutting off your brains.

"But frankly, I try very hard not to be a dictator. I do not force my will on humanity, except when absolutely necessary to ensure our mutual survival. You may recall that certain mafia businesses, such as the child prostitution ring your former boss ran, have been shut down forcibly and all those involved killed? Even my patience has limits.

"You and your friends here have, frankly, exceeded my patience. It was no coincidence that there were filcaps running when you committed your murder. On the other hand, it was only by the merest chance that all four members of the catering staff were in the room. One of them was, of course, me, a body I had decided to sacrifice in the name of providing an excuse to eliminate you, but the others entered the room too late for me to get them back out in time. You would, of course, have been caught and killed anyway, but for the murder of three of my friends--"

"What?"

"You think I don't befriend people? I admit it's a strange sensation, knowing that everyone else is so limited compared to me, but I do LIKE people. I would hardly go to such lengths to preserve the species if I did not; at this point I could simply breed within my own identities, or automate myself entirely, and kill the lot of you.

"Now, as a matter of policy, you and your team must die. You are far too violent to be permitted to run around loose. But your brother is of some interest to me. Therefore I have taken an unusual amount of trouble to ensure that you successfully escaped. A number of my identities were carefully arranged in such a way that my control of the police force had an excuse to let you out of the city. As it is, somebody else observed your getaway and is even now reporting the direction you took to the police. Only the slimmest of margins got you here, but now that you are here, you will not return.

"As for the reason why I am taking such trouble, well... this may well disgust you, Tiger, but I have always had a fetish for large muscles, the larger the better. The most difficult problem with having so many identities is that I have to feign a variety of sexual orientations. One of my first research breakthroughs, in fact, was a method to permit myself temporary arousal at arbitrary stimulus. Very handy.

"As it happens, you and your team all have well-developed bodies."

"So you're going to take us all over? That's sick!"

"Oh, no, I'm not going to take YOU over. I did say 'the larger the better', didn't I? You are no better-developed than many of my own public identities. In fact, all of my bodies at this very facility are larger than any of you. One of the functions of hidden facilities like this is periodic orgies to release my built-up sexual tension. It's like masturbation, only much, much better.

"No, you are going to meet a fate reserved for groups of criminals who society would destroy anyway. I only rarely get an opportunity to apply this... treatment."

"It's you! You're that Naygely guy!"

"Tsk. This is the result of trying to be subtle with criminals. Yes, indeed, I am 'that Naygely guy'. For quite some time, I tried to establish a legend of an assassin named "Naegleria", after the species, but it never really took. Criminals just don't have the science background to recognize it. But I didn't want to do something silly like 'The Bat'.

"No, you will become subjects for the latest iteration of one of my inventions. Once I had a few thousand minds all working simultaneously and in concert, Tiger, I was able to make advances which would, even now, be regarded as science fiction by the public at large. My brains maintain contact via faster-than-light communications, although I see that means nothing to you. Once I had that, I was able to extend myself to places where ordinary humans would be unable to function. There is a colony of me, consisting of clones, living inside the moon, for example, and another on Mars. Getting them there was difficult, but not impossible. And, of course, there's another such colony living inside Europa. They had to be genetically altered, of course, but they live there quite successfully. Were it not for the link with the rest of me, though, they would be horribly insane -- there's practically no light that far away from the sun. But once again, I digress. You'll have to forgive me. I so seldom get the chance to speak frankly to someone else.

"In any event, I discovered quite early on a method by which muscle and bone could be transferred between two bodies. When I began my career as 'Naegleria', I was simply altering the fate of criminals from death by execution to death by muscle draining. When the bodies are drained, I put them somewhere where they will decompose, and arrange them to be 'discovered' after enough time has passed that their state will be unremarkable."

"No!"

"Oh, yes. I have quite a collection, you know. Although not even I can completely stop the aging process, I have found ways to slow it down dramatically, and I still have every single one of these augmented bodies. By various means, I have augmented their nervous systems so as to make most of their bodies into one giant erogenous zone. The orgies are fantastic, I assure you.

"But as I mentioned, I have made certain refinements to the process over time. The first generation was quite crude and inefficient. It required nearly ten kilos of muscle to generate even one kilo on the receiving end. If, by purest chance, I had not had a perfect excuse to capture nearly all of the Las Vegas mob at once, the body onto which I grafted the muscles would not have ended up much larger than ordinary training would have permitted. Thanks to my later improvements, that body is the smallest of all the ones which have undergone the process, despite the vast amount of input material.

"As time passed, I managed to improve the ratio, and as of the most recent such event, I nearly had it down to a one-to-one transfer. But roughly five years ago, I had another breakthrough, and discovered a couple of entirely new improvements.

"First, I found a way in which, by feeding extra mass into the system from elsewhere, I could actually push the ratio beyond one-to-one. Careful experimentation has determined that the present rate of efficiency can be as high as twelve kilos of muscle gained per kilo of muscle drained, under optimum conditions. If I were permitted to redo my first transfer, with the Las Vegas mob, using current techniques, the result would probably be too large for any room in this facility.

"The second new idea is one which is somewhat untested. I have actually discovered a way to drain your metabolism itself. Rather than just taking away the muscle you have already built, the new and improved process will actually drain, well, you could think of it as 'life force', although that is a dramatic oversimplification."

"Wait! If you can create muscle by transferring it around, why are you bothering with us?"

"I'm surprised you caught that. Yes, that first breakthrough means that I can hook up two of my bodies in a circuit and make them both as large as I like. And I assure you that nearly every male body in my hidden facilities -- excluding a few which must remain normal-sized in case I need to interact with ordinary people -- is now a giant sex beast.

"But, you see, I generally don't get to choose which bodies become mine. I can, technically, clone a body, but an ordinary clone has its own mind, which it would be unethical to destroy, and creating a clone body with no mind is extremely difficult and expensive, even now. So most of my bodies, at the point when they become mine, are not particularly attractive. I also don't get my pick of human phenotypes. That's where you and your brother come in. You see, I don't have many asian bodies, period, which are not in active public use. And the few which I do, though all men become more attractive to me when they are muscular giants, still are not particularly good looking. Your brother, though, is ideal. His body is young and handsome and already fairly well-built. As a basis for my latest giant self, he is ideal.

"As I already said, he is not with you right now because he is being 'erased', and his body turned into one of mine. In fact, I have completed the process while we were speaking."

"Damn you!"

"Now, now! If it weren't for me, he would already be dead and buried. As it is, he is merely dead. In fact, if you would like, I could use a sperm sample from that body to create a child, and since I haven't altered his genes -- yet -- it would be exactly like he had descendants. Would you like that?"

"Shut up!"

"Or I suppose I could paralyze your heart for a few minutes, so you would lose consciousness again and be spared any awareness of the transfer process. It would really be no trouble at all."

"Go to hell!"

"Suit yourself. Ah, but now my latest self is here, and the time has come."

From behind him, "Tiger" heard the sound of a heavy door opening and closing. His brother -- or, at least, his brother's body -- walked into the room. It turned to face him and smiled. Outwardly, it was still the same as it had been, although "Tiger" hadn't seen his brother's body naked since they were small children. In the middle of his rising panic, he felt a surge of resentment that his brother had been so much better-hung than he was himself. And "Bull"'s muscles already bulged with strength; his torso had the heavy lines of a young man who had exercised carefully and thoroughly every day.

"Ah, 'Tiger', now you get to watch me create a giant. Nobody has ever actually seen the process other than me, you know. That makes you unique, even if you won't survive long enough for it to be meaningful." The fact that the voice was not actually arriving at his brain via his ears made the whole situation even eerier; if only his brother's body had begun to speak as someone else, it would have dispelled the illusion that it really was his brother in front of him.

The young man pulled in a tube from somewhere out of "Tiger"'s vision. "Before you ask, this tube will act as a conduit for the necessary extra material to the body as it enlarges. Would you like me to start with you, by the way? I will be blocking all pain from your mind as the process is performed, but there's no need to keep you in suspense if you don't want me to do so."

"Fuck you!"

"No need to be so vulgar. I am genuinely trying to ease this transition. If you have no preference, I'll start with the smaller of your two associates, the one you call 'Jack'."

"Stop!"

"Why? At this point, the only other choice would be to kill you outright. That would be a terrible waste! Just let me know at any time if you want to lose consciousness. Now, then..."

The young man stretched and flexed. Light gleamed on his muscles; "Tiger" dimly realized that they must have been oiled. The man grasped the end of the tube in the palm of one hand and laid the other hand on Jack's chest. He smiled beatifically.

"I can't tell you how good this feels. It's like a full-body orgasm, but more intense." The man began to breathe quickly, his chest rising and falling; with each breath, his already-swollen chest gained in size. His arms thickened like a tire inflating. "Bull" had never particularly aspired to low bodyfat, although he didn't have a huge stomach, so even as it expanded his body wasn't particularly vascular, but his muscles were growing huge. Before long, he was as big as Jack had been, while Jack had barely shrunk at all. The man stood with his arms and legs slightly bent, his head back, eyes closed, muscles held in tension as his body became more and more massive.

"Oh, god, yes! Yes! Yes!" "Bull"'s cock now stood erect, pushing further and further out and rising at a growing angle, until it pressed against his abdominals. Meanwhile, his muscles continued to expand at a steady rate. Soon he had to shift his feet because the mass of his thighs had increased too much for his original stance. As his body grew larger, it also grew taller, until he had to bend over to keep his hand on Jack's chest.

The fat on "Bull"'s body was still there, but it was stretched across an increasingly large surface. Soon "Tiger" could see striations in the muscles; "Bull"'s shoulders had grown to the size of basketballs and then beyond, connected to the head by a pair of bulging, rounded masses of muscle which had once been traps. Because the figure was now bent double, "Tiger" couldn't see anything but the tops of his former brother's pecs, but they now stuck out dramatically, blocking all light from the lower torso. The twin spot which were the nipples were just visible along the silhouette of the mass, being pushed farther and farther apart until finally they were obscured by the sheer bulk above them.

Meanwhile, "Bull"'s thighs had likewise become massive objects. Each one was the size of a small child, attached to leg bones which must have doubled in mass. Below them, calves the size of hubcaps but much, much thicker stuck out.

Finally, the man could no longer hold the posture. One massive hand took Jack by the neck and effortlessly lifted him in the air as the giant straightened up. "Tiger" would have gasped, if he had been able to -- his brother's body was now at least three and a half meters tall, and visibly growing. In the center, "Bull"'s penis looked tiny by comparison to the huge muscles which formed its backdrop. In reality, "Tiger" realized, it was larger than it had been minutes before, possibly twice its former size, but there was now so much of his brother's body that in comparison it looked small. The pecs, seen from the front, were works of art, huge and full, signifying tremendous power and masculinity, the nipples pushed downward and rising and falling with the entire mass as the body breathed faster and faster. The arm holding up Jack's body now had more mass than Jack's body, covered with veins and with perfect separation. The forearm was now so large around that it was bigger than Jack's waist.

"Bull"'s body finally came; the spray of semen looked tiny in context, but it covered nearly all of the chair Jack had been in. The voice came back.

"Ah, that was wonderful. The feeling of sustained growth is better than anything else. I record each of these sessions and play them back during my orgies, you know." The giant put Jack down in the chair again. With no muscle control, Jack sprawled uncomfortably, his head at an angle. The once-muscular thug was now somewhat below the average in mass, although his height was still well above average.

"Damnit!"

"Are you sure you wouldn't like me to knock you out?"

"Shut up, you fucking faggot!"

"Tsk. Oh! Hahaha, how ironic! Your mind is sending signals to make your penis hard! Funny you should make that particular accusation right at this moment!"

"Fuck off!"

"Aha. Well. This body is truly a work of art. I am pleased your brother did not get a tattoo, as you did. Of course, I could remove it, but there is always the possibility of scarring. As it is, this new me is flawless. Look--" the huge man flexed his biceps "--most bodies aren't even capable of this kind of muscle separation. Very nice. I think I won't even bother using this body for work. It will just be a sex toy. Look, it has even managed to avoid getting stretch marks so far!"

"Dammit! Let my brother go!"

The giant leaned down and looked "Tiger" in the eyes. "This body isn't your brother any more. This is me. Perhaps if you thought of this body as Naygler, instead of your brother, you would begin to realize the difference?" "Naygler" did a most muscular pose, shifting more muscle mass in his pecs alone than most people had in their entire bodies.

"Ah, well, this body is ready for another orgasm now. Let's continue." Naygler stepped to Chachi's chair, and sat on the floor. His torso was so large that his shoulders were well above the height of Chachi's head. He reached for Chachi's chest, and rested his palm on it.

The reaction this time was even greater. Naygler expanded faster than any balloon "Tiger" had ever seen. His shoulders quickly became so broad that he was wider than Chachi was tall -- and then he expanded further, until his rib cage alone was that wide. And still he grew. Even sitting, his head rose higher and higher.

His muscles were now so large that every fiber stood out as a striation. Or maybe the number of fibers had multiplied and the muscles were just so large that there were that many striations. The bones underneath were enlarging as well, so that although Naygler's frame was muscled beyond belief, absolutely filled with masculine power, he was also increasingly out of proportion. Naygler's head was lost in a layer of huge neck and upper back muscles.

Once again, Naygler got to his feet. Chachi's body was still larger than "Bull" had been, but now Naygler's hand was so large that he hefted the smaller figure by its waist. Naygler stood, rising taller and taller, wider and wider. His shoulders were 6 meters wide, maybe wider, and his traps -- now "taller" than his head -- reached a height which must have been even greater. Soon, he let out a roar and flexed as his penis -- again bigger than ever, but also again smaller by comparison -- released a flood of cum. He used Chachi's emaciated body to wipe his tight, but still huge, 10-pack abs free of semen, and then dropped the man into his chair.

"Excellent! This body is the best I have ever had! The stretch marks are barely showing, and after I take your muscles too this body will be my fourth-largest! I may build a new facility with more room just so I can make this self even bigger!"

Naygler got on his knees, looming over "Tiger", and reached down. He pressed two enormous fingers to "Tiger"'s chest, although "Tiger" had no sensation from his body.

Naygler once again grew larger. "Tiger" was frightened, but also humiliated -- the growth was noticeably slower this time than it had been with either Jack or Chachi. He just didn't have their mass.

Still, as his arms and chest wilted, Naygler expanded noticeably. Soon the giant picked him up, as he had the other two, and when he did, his hand engulfed "Tiger"'s entire torso, his head sticking out between two fingers. Unfortunately, Naygler held him face-down, and with no muscle control he couldn't even move his head. All he could do was take in his view of one massive thigh; stretch marks covered the giant muscles, but even so, "Tiger" could tell that each head of the quadriceps was now larger than his entire body.

There was another roar, drops of cum splattered into view, and "Tiger" was place back in his chair. Naygler loomed over him, hands on his hips. With each deep breath, the giant pecs moved in and out nearly a meter -- they were so large that they blocked "Tiger"'s view of Naygler's face, until the giant stepped back. Each muscle was now so utterly overgrown with power that, even ignoring considerations of scale, Naygler no longer looked human at all. The only flaw was the groin -- the cock was now almost the size of Jack's newly-shrunk forearm, but against the massive size of the giant it looked distressingly tiny.

Naygler chose this moment to speak. "Ah, such a wonderful feeling. This body is now the epitome of masculinity -- look at these muscles!" Naygler hit a few poses; he was unable to complete a few of them because the obtrusive mass of his muscles kept his body from completing some of the motions. Naygler began to worship his own body, licking the enormous biceps on one arm while the other reached around and caressed the nipple. Neither arm was able to reach the nipple on the same side of the body, because the biceps got in the way, but there was just enough reach for three fingers to grasp the enormous, head-sized nipples hanging down from the underside of the meter-deep pecs and squeeze or rub.

"You're really eating this up, aren't you? If you had control of your body, your penis would be as hard as a rock right now and your mouth would be full of drool. I can even tell that your nipples would be hardening! You certainly want this badly! Too bad you'll never have anything like it. Thanks for delivering this body to me, though."

After another five minutes, which were almost unbearable for "Tiger" because of the way the intense eroticism interacted with his lack of physical control, Naygler came yet again. The giant directed the stream straight at "Tiger", and the force and volume was such that it actually knocked him back in his seat. Naygler laughed.

"Well, now it's time for the second round of transfers. This is truly groundbreaking, you know. I've never actually done this transfer between humans before. I've only confirmed that it works between vertebrates. My prediciton is that the effects should be interesting. You are truly privileged to see this experiment."

Naygler smiled -- "Tiger" could just make the expression out at this distance -- and reached down to Jack. He picked up the man, now ordinary-sized, in one hand, and closed his eyes.

At first, nothing seemed to be happening. Then little crackles of energy began to run around Naygler's body. These grew more numerous, and then his skin began to glow -- first a faint blue, and then brighter and lighter until the light was a dazzling white. "Tiger" wished he could blink, but he still had no control over his own body and had to stare. Finally the light began to fade, until Naygler was merely glowing faintly blue again. As the afterimages faded, the giant opened his hand. All that remained of Jack was skin, stretched over a skeleton. Naygler blew on the body, and the skin became a cloud of dust, expanding away. He chuckled and dropped the skeleton over the chair, where some of the smaller bones bounced away across the room. Then he leaned back -- his head was now so deeply embedded in his traps that he could no longer throw back his head -- and laughed and laughed.

"THIS IS SO AMAZING! THIS POWER IS GREATER THAN I THOUGHT POSSIBLE! THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS! WATCH THIS!"

Naygler flexed his huge body; the stretch marks which covered the skin sealed up and vanished.

"THAT'S ONLY THE BEGINNING! I HAVE BARELY USED A MILLIONTH OF WHAT I ABSORBED! TRULY, THIS IS PURE LIFE FORCE!"

Naygler reached down to his cock. It inflated like a balloon, pulsing and throbbing, veins standing out on the sides, until, if anything, it was too large for even the giant's body. The testicles below likewise enlarged, until they were the size of cars, and hung down to Naygler's knees.

"HA HA HA HA HA! THIS IS INCREDIBLE! I COULD MAKE MYSELF AS LARGE AS A CITY! OR, WAIT! I COULD MAKE MYSELF EVEN MORE INTELLIGENT, AND STUDY THIS POWER UNTIL I UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING ABOUT IT! YES!"

Naygler shut his eyes and concentrated. The giant's head began to enlarge. It remained too small for the body, but it was obviously now the size of a beachball.

"Yuck!"

The giant eyes whipped open.

"I DON'T SEE THAT YOU HAVE ANY REASON TO COMPLAIN. I KEPT THE FACIAL FEATURES IN PROPORTION. I EVEN MADE A FEW IMPROVEMENTS!"

It was true. "Bull" had been handsome, but the face which looked down at "Tiger" was a Japanese god, with high cheekbones and a smile full of brilliant white teeth. "Bull"'s body hair had been completely removed, not that he had had very much to begin with, and the effect was electrifying.

"You're not glowing as much any more."

"OF COURSE NOT. I DIDN'T MERELY ENLARGE THE BRAIN OF THIS BODY, I INCREASED ITS COMPLEXITY BY SEVERAL ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE. YOUR BROTHER'S FORMER BODY IS NOW GODLIKE IN BOTH PHYSIQUE AND MIND; IT HAS NEARLY AS MUCH CAPACITY AS ALL THE OTHER BODIES I MAINTAIN IN THIS HEMISPHERE PUT TOGETHER, AND SINCE IT'S ALL IN ONE UNIT IT WORKS MUCH MORE EFFECTIVELY. WHAT A BREAKTHROUGH!"

The giant closed his eyes. "HMMMMMM. YES, I THINK I AM BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND THIS LIFE FORCE NOW. I HAD BETTER TRY AN EXPERIMENT."

Somewhere behind "Tiger", a door opened, and another hulking figure walked into view. This one was a blond giant, with a tiny head and huge-but-still-proportionally-tiny genitals, but unlike Naygler -- or, at least, unlike the body Naygler had just enlarged -- this body was cosmetically terrible. It was covered with stretch marks, pimples, little patches of straggly body hair, and scars, and had a face like two kilometers of bad road, with a large birthmark on the forehead. An old tattoo, shapeless and unrecognizable, showed on one pectoral. Although the muscles were huge, the skin sagged here and there.

"NOW, LET'S SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DO THIS!"

The glowing giant pressed its palms against the new figure. Its head and cock grew until they matched those of the Japanese figure. A wave of energy spread from the contact points, and as it passed, the giant's skin tightened, healed, and cleared. The Japanese giant stepped back.

If "Bull"'s body had become a Japanese god, this second figure had become a Nordic one. Ice-blue eyes looked out from a flawless face, above a body which was everything a Scandinavian bodybuilder could possibly have aspired to. The tattoo was gone, as were the pimples and stretch marks. The body hair had consolidated into a thick coat in the perfect locations, covering the giant muscles to make them look even more sexy and masculine than they would have been on their own.

"PERFECT! I SEE, NOW, HOW THIS WORKS. PERHAPS I CAN DO MORE WITH MY SECOND TRY!"

"What? You're still going to kill Chachi?"

Both giants turned to face "Tiger".

"OF COURSE. I HAVE AN ENTIRE FACILITY OF BODIES TO BE CONVERTED. YOU AND YOUR THUG FRIEND WILL BE THE KEYS TO MY PERFECTION. BUT I WILL NEED TO THINK. FORTUNATELY, ONE OF THE BENEFITS OF BEING A GROUP MIND IS THE ABILITY TO MULTITASK."

With this, the two giants began to worship each other. "Tiger" screamed and raged, but it was clear that his captor was no longer listening to his "voice". For half an hour, the two gods sucked each other's bodies, licked their muscles, and fucked each other in the ass -- "Tiger" found himself speculating on what sort of internal structure these godlike beings had, to permit them to take such huge cocks all the way.

Finally, the two giants disengaged. The floor was slick with cum from their mating, and it took a noticeable amount of time for the Japanese dick to be removed from the Nordic ass.

"I HAVE IT! JUST LIKE MUSCLE AND BONE, LIFE FORCE CAN BE AMPLIFIED AS IT IS TRANSFERRED! HA HA HA! PERFECT! WATCH THIS!"

Naygler picked up Chachi in one hand. The Nordic god moved behind him, and as "Tiger" watched, a line of giants trooped in. One by one, the Japanese figure placed its hands on their chests. Each one became an absolutely perfect personification of masculinity in its ethnicity, with giant cocks and perfect faces. The only other major variation was hair; some came through the process smooth, some covered with the most amazingly male body hair, some with beards, some clean-shaven. A rare few were rendered bald-headed, although this only served to make them even more sexy and commanding. A few came in with gray hair and wrinkles; in the process of transformation they became young again.

As the giants were transformed into gods, they passed by what had been "Bull"'s body and joined the other transformed bodies, where they began an orgy which constantly grew more active and passionate. "Tiger"'s mind was consumed with pain from his inability to even get hard, let alone relieve himself by jacking off.

Finally, after several hundred giants had been processed, so many that "Tiger" could no longer even give a reliable estimate, and the orgy had become an erotic scene beyond anything "Tiger" could possibly imagine, Naygler gave a contemptuous look down and opened his hand to reveal that Chachi, too, was now a mere skeleton. He dropped it in disgust, and walked to "Tiger".

"NOW, THEN, I'M AFRAID IT'S TIME FOR US TO PART WAYS. MY ANALYSIS IS NOW COMPLETE. I CAN CONTROL LIFE FORCE WITH ALMOST TOTAL PRECISION; IF I SO DESIRED, I COULD POWER THIS CONTINENT FOR A MONTH USING WHAT'S IN YOUR BODY, ALONE. YOU ARE NEARLY A DECADE YOUNGER THAN EITHER IN FACT, NOW THAT I CAN AMPLIFY IT DURING TRANSFER, I CAN TURN ALL MY SELVES INTO GODS, JUST LIKE I WAS ABLE TO MAKE THEM INTO GIANTS."

"Wait! You don't need to kill me!"

"YOU'RE RIGHT. I COULD LET YOU LIVE. BUT YOU FORGET; YOU'RE A CRIMINAL. THIS IS YOUR PUNISHMENT. AND BESIDES, I HAVE SOMETHING SPECIAL IN MIND. WHAT ARE THE LIMITS OF THE HUMAN GENOTYPE, DO YOU SUPPOSE?"

"You're going to grow even more?!"

"DON'T BE ABSURD. IF I WANTED TO CREATE A MERE GIANT, I COULD HAVE DONE SO BEFORE YOU EVEN ARRIVED. NO, I'M GOING TO SEE IF I CAN BECOME... MORE."

"More?"

"JUST WATCH. WHILE YOU CAN, AT LEAST. LET ME HOLD YOU WHERE YOU CAN SEE."

The familiar glow started. Naygler's body began to change shape in subtle ways. The face stretched and distorted -- "Tiger" realized with awe that it was surpassing the human capacity for masculine beauty. Then the giant gave a roar; a second set of arms erupted from the shoulders. This would have been disgusting in an ordinary person, but somehow the godlike being merely became more perfect. His skin tightened, and tanned, his cock pulsed and grew, and was joined by two others, one on each side. The glow grew brighter, and "Tiger" could see that the figure was indeed growing again. The other godlike beings began to climb over it, worshipping and fucking, and beginning their own transformations into more perfect beings. It burst through the roof of the room, and accelerated. Its anatomy reconfigured again and again, pushing further and further into impossible masculinity. Finally, it burst through a final, thick ceiling, and "Tiger" saw sky above.

"YYYEEEESSSS!! II AAMM NNOOWW AA GGOODD!" roared Naygler, as "Tiger" lost consciousness for the last time.