Outgrowing the Arcology Ch. 03

In any case, it was a good distraction, because deep down Rose had to admit she shared some of Michelle's concerns. This wasn't normal behaviour for human bodies, and with experimental medicine as radical as the rejuvenation formula, you never knew what to expect. Still, she was confident that modern medical science could fix just about anything, and so far all five of them were feeling fine. For the time being she was vicariously enjoying the experience through Maaya, who was clearly happy with her new height. Whatever the consequences might be, she knew she couldn't change them by constantly worrying about it.

Rose's thoughts were interrupted when Mike, Michelle and Kimiko emerged from the station. Rose noted how strange it was that for the second time today, Kimiko had shown up together with Mike and Michelle even though normally she hung out more with Maaya. Was it just because Rose had monopolised Maaya's attention for most of the day, or was there something more to it?

"What the hell?" Kimiko blurted as she saw Maaya and Rose. "Where did you two find clothes that fit?"

It was true; Rose and Maaya were both wearing new clothes that fit their large bodies perfectly. Maaya wore knee-length jeans and a stylish off-white blouse, and while Rose's more daring short skirt and V-neck top may still have showed off a considerable amount of skin, it was obviously not because they were too small for her.

"There's this shop I know that can custom-make clothes within an hour using an automatic tailor," Rose answered. "It's come in handy before since even at my old height I didn't exactly wear standard sizes, especially here in Japan. They're not cheap, but Professor Tamura offered to pay using Madihi Labs' expense account."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Kimiko demanded, looking sour. "I ended up buying the largest men's shirt I could find at short notice, and I'm still not wearing a bra!"

"Sorry," Rose shrugged. "We were in a rush getting ready in time for the flight, so I guess I forgot."

Rose checked out Kimiko. She was wearing, as she said, a large men's button-down shirt that just barely fit around her enormous chest. The top few buttons couldn't be closed, so her breasts bulged out of the top, but it still looked less ridiculous than the overly tight t-shirt she had worn that morning. Despite Kimiko's disappointment at not being told about the custom clothes, Rose couldn't help but get the impression she didn't really mind showing off that much cleavage.

"So, everybody ready to go?" Mike asked. "I must admit, despite the situation, a free trip to Casablanca is quite a nice bonus."

"This isn't a vacation, Mike," Michelle admonished him.

"Have you ever been to Casablanca?" Maaya asked.

He shook his head. "Nope. My folks and I travelled around much of Europe when I was younger, but I've never visited Africa."

"I've never been out of Japan," Maaya admitted. "Actually, I've never been on a plane. It's exciting!"

"It's not that spectacular, really," Mike said. "I've flown a lot; it gets quite boring after a while."

They were interrupted by the voice of Professor Tamura, approaching them from behind. "But I bet you've never flown business class before!"

"Hi Professor," Michelle said. "You mean we're flying business class today?"

"Of course," the Professor said, waving her hand as if dismissing the matter. "Or would you like to try squeezing Miss Silva and Miss Chung into an economy class seat?"

"It would be hilarious, though," Kimiko laughed.

"But uncomfortable," Rose said. "I hope Madihi is paying for this, Professor. We wouldn't want to inconvenience you."

"Of course they are. This mess is their fault, so expenses are on them until it's solved. Now, we'd better go, our flight leaves in twenty minutes."

They proceeded to the terminal entrance, and dropped their luggage in one of the many baggage collection chutes along the outside wall. The bags, already tagged with a chip identifying their owner, would automatically be taken to the correct aircraft based on their flight reservation. Entering the terminal, they walked through the blue light of the security scanner that covered all the entrances and exits of the terminal building. It checked for any illegal or dangerous items, and if found would alert security personnel. It also checked their identification from their biometric chips, and logged their departure from the country. If there were no issues, they could proceed straight to the gate without bothering with long lines or check-in procedures.

Rose brought up directions on her retinal implant, and it overlaid arrows on the floor in her vision showing her how to get to the gate, and provided information about the distance. Their gate wasn't too far, so they didn't need to hurry.

Maaya suddenly looked concerned. "Professor, something's wrong. My retinal implants aren't working."

"Oh?" Tamura said. "Is this the first time you've tried using them today?"

Maaya thought about it for a bit. "I think so. I haven't needed them until now. I was trying to check the airport map."

"In that case, I expect your growth has caused the nerve connections on the implant to become misaligned. It's one of the reasons why you can't normally get implants until after puberty. It's inconvenient, but not dangerous; you just have to get them realigned. Although it may be better to wait until we're sure you won't grow any further."

"I could grow more?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure, but we can't discount the possibility."

Rose thought she could hear a note of excitement in Maaya's voice at the thought of getting even bigger. And Rose had to admit, it excited her too. Maaya might still be shorter than Rose, but she had gained much more height, and if that trend continued... Rose wondered what it would be like to have sex with a taller girl, something which she'd never experienced before. She had always been the taller one with all her previous girlfriends.

"Professor, we're flying via Amsterdam, right?" Mike asked.

"That's correct, Mister Conrad. We have a twenty-five minute layover, which should be plenty of time."

"Cool," Mike said. "The artificial island that New Amsterdam Airport is on is right next to where they're building the new North Sea Arcology. We should be able to see it during the flight."

"I would think so, yes," Tamura replied, though she didn't seem particularly interested. "Ah, there's our gate."

They walked through the gate, going through another scanner that ensured this was indeed their flight, and proceeded to board the aircraft, a Boeing SS187 supersonic airliner.

Maaya, who'd never been in an aircraft before, was looking around with interest. "It looks smaller than I thought," she said.

"That's probably just because you're bigger than before," Tamura offered. "Our seats are in the first row." She pointed towards the nose of the aircraft.

Like most supersonics, their plane was a large blended wing body aircraft whose aerodynamics were specifically designed to eliminate sonic booms, allowing them to fly over land at a cruising speed of nearly Mach 5. It had very wide cabin, offering seating for over 700 passengers, and most of the fuselage was made from variable-transparency composite, allowing passengers to look outside in nearly all directions except straight down. Currently, the composite was somewhat darkened to reduce the glare of the afternoon sun.

They had three pairs of seats all the way in the front, the entire first row, which allowed them an excellent view out the front; the cockpit was directly below them, where the plane's sole pilot was there primarily to keep an eye on the automated systems and to take action in case of an emergency.

Mike sighed as he lowered himself into the luxurious leather cushioning, and Michelle gave him a brief smile as she sat down next to him, and took his hand. Much to Mike's relief, it seemed Michelle wasn't so angry anymore, and since the examination had shown they were all currently still healthy she was also slightly less worried.

Rose, misreading their expressions, looked at them with a sly smile. "You two thinking of joining the mile high club?"

"Are you kidding?" Mike said, laughing. "Do you know how small aircraft bathrooms are, even in business class?"

A flight attendant came to their seats, and did a double-take when she saw Maaya, Rose and Kimiko. She recovered her professionalism quickly however, and asked them if they wanted anything to drink before take-off. Mike admired the attendant's figure as she took their order; it was one of the reasons he liked KLM, as they nearly always had tall, blonde flight attendants, although he thought he might need to adjust his definition of tall after today.

He turned on his undressing software, the one way he'd found to keep long flights interesting. It couldn't do a very accurate job with a random flight attendant he'd never seen before, but that didn't matter; even if her nipples weren't really as big as the software estimated, they were still nice nipples to look at. For good measure, he also enabled the software for Michelle, Kimiko, Maaya and Rose, though fear of the repercussions if he was found out prevented him from using it on Professor Tamura, even though he'd love to see her amazing breasts. Looking at the now 100% accurate representation of Michelle's naked body, he did feel a brief pang of guilt, even though Michelle had previously told him she didn't mind him looking at other women as long as it was only looking (and as long as he didn't complain about her looking at other guys); yesterday's events with Kimiko meant he should be a bit more discreet than usual to regain her trust.

As the aircraft began to taxi, the senior purser came on with an announcement. "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome aboard KLM flight 862 to Amsterdam. Our flight time today will be just under three hours, and we're expecting clear skies for most of the way. Full net access is available during this flight, and as KLM passengers you can access our inflight entertainment system on your retinal implant for free access to a large variety of movies and other programmes. For those passengers too young to have implants"—"or if they're not working," Maaya muttered under her breath—"please ask one of our flight attendants to provide you with a screen." After she finished, the announcement was repeated in Dutch and Japanese.

As they made their way across the airfield, Maaya pointed out the window. "Those planes look funny. They're just tubes with wings."

"Those are antiques," Mike said. "Old twentieth and twenty-first century planes that are part of Haneda's flight museum."

"I'm glad we're flying in a normal plane, and not one of those flimsy-looking things," Maaya said, frowning.

They turned onto the runway, and began to accelerate. Mike felt himself pushed back into his seat as the aircraft left the ground and ascended steeply, quickly accelerating to supersonic speeds. As they left Tokyo behind, Mike was hoping that at the end of this trip their problems would be solved.

------

The transfer at Amsterdam was uneventful, or at least as uneventful as travelling with extremely tall and busty women can be. The Dutch may be used to tall people, but even they had never seen anything like Maaya and Rose. And for once, Professor Tamura's chest got comparatively little attention as it was overshadowed by Kimiko's, though her flamboyant green hair still attracted some stares. Michelle even admitted to Mike she almost wished she'd grown more as people virtually ignored her in the presence of the others; it was a good indication of what Kimiko and Maaya must've felt like around Michelle and Rose before, in any case.

From Amsterdam it was just a short trip to Casablanca, and their plane approached the arcology late in the morning, local time. The domes that replaced much of the old city glittered in the sunlight next to the Atlantic Ocean as they descended towards them. Mike didn't know if he was imagining it, but even from a distance the arcology looked richer than Tokyo.

During the twenty-first century, the Western economy had gone from bad to worse, reaching its nadir around the 2060s when climate change, shortages in oil and other natural resources, and growing population pressure gave what seemed to be a death blow to Western-style consumerism. With the economies of Europe and the US continuously declining, they had dragged the large Asian economies like India and China down with them.

The situation didn't improve until the end of the century, when the first commercially viable nuclear fusion power plant finally went online, promising a clean, efficient replacement of fossil fuels with none of the drawbacks of nuclear fission and at a fraction of the cost of other renewable sources of energy. The North African Conglomerate, a collection of companies from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, acted quickly to install fusion reactors in North Africa, causing the region to be the first to recover from the depression. Then, after Japan demonstrated the viability of the concept of arcologies in the early twenty-second century, the global economy finally managed to drag itself out of the mud. The North African Conglomerate ended up so rich that for all intents and purposes it superseded the government of the three African states in which it operated, and in 2178, Casablanca—where the Conglomerate's headquarters were located—became the capital of the entire region.

Mike was glad they made it to Casablanca without incident. Although girls growing huge breasts or becoming giantesses were his biggest fantasies, even he didn't feel like experiencing the reality of a huge growth spurt at eighteen kilometres altitude. The thought of one of the girls outgrowing the airplane was admittedly hot, but it would be quite deadly.

Professor Tamura had told them that Dr Bassir would meet them in person at the airport, but to their surprise he was nowhere to be found. They were even more surprised when a young woman waved them over.

"Professor Sayoko Tamura, I assume," she said, smiling. "Your group is kind of hard to miss."

The same could be said about the girl, Mike thought. He guessed she was a few years older than him, but not many. Her skin was smooth and dark like chocolate, and her face was accentuated by full lips, a long, yet delicate nose, deep brown eyes, and curly, shoulder-length auburn hair. Her figure was equally spectacular, with wide hips, long legs, and a chest that, if it hadn't been for Mike's present company, would've been very impressive.

She was wearing a loose emerald green dress whose colour appeared to shift and shimmer in the light as she moved. The fabric seemed to flow around her, conforming to her curvy body in way that such a loose garment really shouldn't. The fabric was also slightly transparent, as was a common North African fashion at the moment, just enough to make you question whether or not you could actually see her nipples, the effect of which was extremely alluring. The elegant dress accentuated her beauty so perfectly that the idea of using his undressing software never even crossed Mike's mind. He suspected the material was smart-silk, but if that was the case the dress must cost a fortune.

"Yes, that's me," Tamura answered her. "I'm sorry, the person I spoke to before told me we would be met by Dr Bassir."

"IamDr Lina Bassir," the girl said. "Though I guess you were expecting my father." She smiled broadly, which made her seem even more beautiful. "My dad asked me to take care of you during your visit. I've already arranged for your luggage to be brought to my apartment, where you will be staying."

"We're staying with you?" Mike blurted out, surprised.

Tamura shot him an irritated look. "What he means is, we don't wish to impose."

Lina smiled again. "It's no problem. To be honest, I'm glad to have some company. That ridiculously large apartment my dad got for me feels rather lonely at times. When I was still studying for my Ph.D., I shared it with a bunch of my fellow students, but ever since I finished it's just been me and a lot of empty rooms."

That they were staying at her place was hardly the last surprise Lina had in store for them, though. She led their little group not to the arcology's transport tubes, but to a private vehicle that looked like an old-fashioned limousine.

"It's an antique Rolls Royce," Lina explained when she saw their expressions. "The petrol engine's been replaced with a modern electric system, of course, and it's controlled by standard traffic net software, but otherwise it's mostly original."

"Jesus wept!" Mike exclaimed. "Just how rich are you?"

"Very," Lina replied simply. "It's mostly my dad's money, of course. I'm still trying to get out of his shadow, to be honest."

"But you work for Madihi Labs, right?" Michelle asked as they got into the car, which despite its size was rather cramped with the seven of them.

"That's right. I'm following in my father's footsteps as it were. But I got hired on my own merits, not because of my name." She sounded very proud when she said it.

"Do you think you'll be able to help us?" Rose asked.

"I don't know," Lina admitted. "We've never had a case like this before, and the other test subjects didn't have any such symptoms. But I'm sure we'll figure it out. My father and your Professor Tamura here are some the most brilliant geneticists in the world, after all."

"Wait, test subjects? Plural?" Tamura interrupted her. "I thought I was the only other person who was taking the formula? I didn't think they'd started wider trials yet."

"They haven't. It's just that I've been taking it as well, actually," Lina said.

"What?" Kimiko said, incredulous. "Dr Bassir used his own daughter as a test subject?"

"I requested it myself. I helped design the formula, so I knew it was safe; or at least, I thought I did until, well, you know..." She gestured at the girls.

"But you haven't been taking any other medication, I assume," Maaya said.

"Yeah, I guess that's what makes the difference." She looked at Mike. "Though that doesn't explain your penis expansion."

Mike turned crimson; in retrospect he should've known she would know about that.

Lina simply grinned at his reaction. "In any case, we should know soon enough."

------

The tests in they were subjected to at Madihi Labs were much the same as the regular check-ups at the university in Tokyo, though the equipment was more sophisticated and the tests more thorough. They also took longer, and Mike and the girls were beginning to get very tired by the time they were finished. Supersonic flight may have made travel times shorter, but it only made jetlag worse since the time difference was still the same. Although there was medication to reset a person's biological rhythm and effectively eliminate jetlag, Tamura had recommended that they shouldn't take any other medicine until they knew what was going on.

On top of that, all of them had noticed the horniness was returning with a vengeance. Michelle and Mike were beginning to regret not at least trying to join the mile high club, and the same was probably true for Maaya and Rose, even though they had to acknowledge there was absolutely no way they would've both fit in the plane's bathroom at the same time. It was even worse for Kimiko, who didn't have anyone and who felt increasingly guilty as her thoughts kept returning to Mike and the feeling of his hard dick and his hands on her growing breasts.

But none of them had any chance for relief, as after the tests they had to wait at the Labs for the results. They didn't even have Lina or Professor Tamura to talk to, as they had gone to consult with the other scientists on the project.

"That Lina is quite a looker, isn't she?" Rose commented, slouched in one of the chairs of the conference room where they were told to wait.