The Greatest Mistake

The Breastlogün Institute never took his work seriously; Mark Anthony was too young and too arrogant to accept Ms. Hoth orientations for a more conservative line of work. Mark was the wild card at the institute, always finding miraculous solutions in other people’s researches. His own projects were kept secret in nature even from DARPA, his main funding. Whatever the projects were, they wanted, the kid was just a super genius.

Mark started to talk with just some months of life, played violin with six years, created his own OS for his homemade supercomputer as a teenager. He was the new Mozart of science. 

But being so young and so bright made him reclusive. All people in the school were older and taller than him. All his crushes laughed at him, the girls were taller than him, more emotionally mature than him, and it made a hell of his life. Eve was the one who hurt him the most. Mark loved his neighbor since five years old, when she was ten, five years older. And every time she came close of him, he would sweat, his heart beatings would go faster, his logical thinking clouded.

When Mark was nine years old, he wrote a symphony for her. She was the most beautiful cheerleader in school. Using his supercomputer, he created a virtual orchestra to be the sole the maestro of his own opus. The powerful computer created the final master after a week of machines running at 2000 watts.

And then came the toughest part, to give it to her.

Eve as a spoiled teenager as she could be, blessed with an uncommon beauty that made her the highest trophy of anyone to have the fortune to kiss her; the school and anyone inside were her property to gamble away. Her purple, Elizabeth Taylor eyes made some froze their stare in her hypnotic gaze. She always knew that her beauty affects anyone around, even disturbing them. People normally shut their mouths down when she made her pass in a crowded room.

And then was this kid handling her a symphony with his hands shaking in front of her home.

‘Aren’t you the kid on my English class?’

‘W…We are neighbors…’

‘Oh, right.’ And she left him alone putting the CD in her bag.

On that night, Mark using a laser attached to a microphone, he heard her conversation with some other girl over the phone. Was two hours she was chatting without saying a word about him: ‘Totally, it was so awesome, his muscles are the best, he had a greek body, you know, when he took his shirt off, I said: oh, my! We almost have sex right there, awesome! You should try a guy like him, I couldn’t take my hands from his body. Big arms. Awesome!’

After one hour talking about some big dude’s muscles, Eve finally talks about him: ‘And then show up this weirdest kid, you know from English classes? Trying to flirt with me! (lots of laughs) So cute. You should see, so nervous. But what he was thinking?! And then he gave me this CD… no wait, let me tell… with the most horrendous and annoying music I ever heard! I listened to what… 10 seconds before throwing it out by the window. Why he is in our classes? Is he a midget or something?’

Mark Anthony sunk it all. All he learned from the world is that nothing is more important then strength and muscles. All his music, all his dimensional equations, was worthless to have the most important thing in his life, Eve. He would change that. Somehow. And the Four-eyes Pest knocked at his door. Mark and his younger sister fought for trivialities all the time, seeking revenge to each other until the end of the days.

Mary was two years younger, but she took some better part of their mother genes, she was always strong as him, but Mark hit the puberty earlier, making him regain his position as big brother in their weekly hand-to-hand battles over the TV remote.

And in less than a year, Mark saw Eve abandoning the school for a supermodel career. Suddenly, she was traveling all over the world at just sixteen years of age. He would follow her career closely, of how much money she was earning, the commercials she made, the deals and dates with powerful people. He was obsessive about her.

But it all just made Mark feel smaller. He knew she was special, but never would imagine that she could fly so high without him and his big brain.

But Mark entered his teenager years becoming a handsome fella. Plenty of girls became interested in him. But it was too late. He entered college at fourteen. Where all his problems of being too young were there again. All his new crushes laughed at him. Was all happening again, and Mark decided his master plan:

Mark entered a gym.

And never got a once of muscle on him.

And then Mark Anthony mastered the B master plan: to change the Universe. To him the universe was a program and it could be hacked. Meanwhile, Eve was perplexing the world by being so not bulimic-ultra-thin-supermodel, but the opposite, her toned frame and proportions in her tall body made her walk so unique that soon her would appear in the World's top-earning models.

The photographers outside Mark’s window showed when Eve decided to visit her parents. Even being so close to him like this, Eve was untouchable as the celebrity she was. That night, Mark would work out his new harmonics to hack the universe in his favor. He could change the past, the present and the future.

The Breastlogen Institute was empty. His sister Mary accompanied him, from all people he knew, she was the one he trusted the most, because he trusted no one. Mary hadn’t a clue of what Mark was doing there, but since he had money to pay, she would go. Mary always lived at the shadows of his bother, he brought money to the family, he had access to all he wanted, people talked about him. And she was always struggling to have a B-, and to have to bear his brother because he remunerated her to help to hold things at his tiny lab.

‘Why your lab is so small? Why don’t you have a bigger one?’

‘To not bring any attention to me. This is serious stuff. I don’t think that even me should be messing with it.’

‘How serious?’

‘It could tear the space-time away if I do something wrong’

‘And why you are doing that?’

‘Can you stop asking those questions? Take plug and connect here… careful, you will not want to mess with it.’ Mark using the same programming he used when had nine years old to create a symphony, pushes the Green button: ‘thar she blows…’

‘What did you said?’ Mary asked.

Three nanoscopic frequency emitters created a blinding dot of light at the center of the lab, Mark asked in wonder ‘are we alive?’

‘I guess’ Mary answered. Then, colorful arcs of light appeared around the blinding dot like magnetic fields orbiting it ‘so beautiful…’ Mary said to him.

‘We see the music, but I must register the score now. It’s just some teraflops.’ And Mark went to his computer to interpret the source code of the universe. His sister tried to touch the arcs of light.

‘DON’T TOUCH IT!` Mark slapped her hand away.

‘Hey!’

‘Can you please stand back, it can be dangerous’ and Mark resumed his recordings of the event ‘you change one note and all the symphony changes…’ Mark said looking at the new algorithms in his monitors savoring his discoveries  ‘I can’t believe how elegant are those fundamental frequencies. Do you see those waves here? It’s us, you and me, our quantum symmetric tensors. It’s our symmetry in relation of the rest of the universe.’

Mary was getting bored by so much mathematical gibberish ‘can you tell me in some way that I could understand?’
 
Mark kept typing while answering her ‘hmm, its really simple, think of the first law of thermodynamics’

‘I still don’t get it’

Mark was getting annoyed by his dumb sister ‘can you pay more than you earn?’

‘I guess, with a credit card… but you mean that I can’t create money from nothing, is that what you are saying?’

‘Exactly.’

‘But it can be transferred…’

‘Yes, it can.’

‘What are you up to?’

‘I must run a simulation first, it will take some months to for the first results in the Institute supercomputer’ Mark returned his attention to the harmonics, too anxious to understand all the implications of his work.

Mary was still glaring at the beautiful lights coming from Mark experiment, but then it started to grow in size ‘Mark… something is happening…’ and one arc of light hit them both and all power in the building gone down.

In the next morning, a janitor woke up both Mark and Mary with his broom. Mark looks at his sides and the emitters were partially melted down ‘Fuck!’ he tried to find an answer but strangely he couldn’t know where to begin. Mary sees her brother punching the monitors totally enraged and asked ‘what happened?’

‘I don’t know… I fucking don’t know’ he said.

‘Maybe a wave function collapse?’ Mary said scratching her head.

‘What did you said?’

Mary adjusted her glasses saying ‘Did you used Planck constant, or Dirac?’ She asked as those constants were like ice cream flavors.

‘Stop. Just yesterday you didn’t even know what the first law of… of…’

‘…thermodynamics? Conservation of energy?’ Mary said wondering from where this knowledge came from.

‘Shit… what happened?’ Mark said in panic not understanding the basics of his own experiment ‘I think I need to… what? Shit, I’m fucking lost’.

Mary understood right away what happened, somehow she had his intelligence, but decided to play dumb again ‘maybe it blown up the fuse…’

‘It has a fuse?’ Mark sees his equipment; it was familiar to him, but alien at the same time. Mary decided to go away, she already knew what he did wrong, why the emitters melted, of the nature of his work. And the real question buzzing her mind was: why her brother was trying to change the universe in a personal level?

At home, Mary went to his supercomputer and scrolled down his programming ‘shit, it all needs some serious debugging’ she made hard copies of everything and analyzing carefully his research, found out it was correlated to change himself ‘for what? Poor Mark… he’ll never get it whatever it is without such intelligence.’

For more she hated him on daily basis, mainly because of his arrogance, his smart-ass attitude, all this knowledge still belonged to him. As the master key to change universe’s properties. Mary had to make a decision; she put a coat and passed by his bedroom where she saw his violin. Mary never touched it, not even knew how to hold it properly, but it was yesterday. She adjusts the seat, took one of his score prints and put the violin under her chin. Mary begun to laugh on how easily she could play the notes with such a difficult instrument. Then she took his electronic keyboard and she seemed to have four hands. Mary could even improvise.

‘That’s why music is so important to him… the universe working as a musical clock… is overwhelming…’ and she heard the front door opening, it was Mark. She let his instruments at the place she found them. Mary saw him walking up the stairs worried. ‘Are you all right?’

‘What you’ve done?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Now she was worried.

‘Did mess with something in my lab? Did you? Did you… unplug… something?’

And then she was relieved ‘No, of course not. Why should I do something like this?’

‘Because it would make you feel better. Don’t you think that I know how jealous you are of my success? Or my money? That I can do things that your dumb head can’t think of? That I am respected and no one notices you?’

‘Is that what you think of me?’

‘Damn right, sister. Now move. How could I trusted you? Get out of my face.’ Mark just wanted to hurt her, his mind was confused, like he was deeply stoned. He seats on his supercomputer but it stuck at the boot. And Mark hadn’t a clue how to solve it.

Mary was infuriated with his moronic brother. And to think she would let things to be like they were… never.

Soon after, in the next day, Mark was expelled from the Institute. It was the monthly review of his projects he couldn’t give any decent answers. Some teachers that always dueled math problems with him thought that he had a concussion, or some other problem. But in the scientific circle, he received the Fraud ticket to nothingness that spread like the Ebola virus.
   
Mary on the other hand, didn’t pay any attention to the classes. She was having straight A+ at every test on that day without studying. Some teachers claimed she was cheating somehow, and she gladly debunked them in oral exams. She spent all her day finding a solution to a puzzle: how and why something so specific and complex as intelligence was transferred to her? And she wrote equations after equations filling pages of it, which she hidden from anyone around, even from her closest friend, Gracie.

Gracie had a crush on Mark since she met him. And she knew by his sister what type of girl Mark craves: Eve. Tall, blond, build, voluptuous. He wasn’t original in his tastes, but to his genius type, Mark wouldn’t accept anything less. Gracie wrote love letters to Mark that she kept to herself. Her fear of his rejection was so reinforced because she was just the opposite of Eve. Frail, short, brown hair and flat. If she had the money, she would make a boob job. If she had the courage, Gracie would change her hair to blond.

At the gym class, Gracie relieved herself playing basket. Mary hated all sports. She stayed at the bench writing down new equations. And it was getting easier by the hour. ‘I’ve founded it!’ she shouted. People stared at her and she managed to say ‘…who’s the fifth cylon is…’ even Mary thought that it was a weird thing to say; only his geek brother would come up with it ‘shit, I don’t even watch Battlestar Galactica’ she thought. 

Going home, Gracie accompanied Mary ‘is your brother still worshiping that girl?’

Mary had a lot of things in her head, she didn’t want to think about Mark ‘he still buys every mag she appear… yes, he just don’t accept that he’s completely out of her league. Mark is fixated over her.’ And Mary started to connect the dots ‘…was he trying to change the universe because of her?’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘But he is such a genius, an artist, and charming, and hot’ Gracie could give a finger to kiss him right now.

‘I think you are overrating him.’ And Mary invited her home. In there Mark was in depression, seated at the kitchen, staring at a glass of Coke and needing bath. Gracie goes over to talk to him.

‘Hi, Mark!’

‘Fuck off.’

Gracie just shut up with her feelings once more time hurt by him. Mary sees the girl who wanted to love him stomped down one more time. Mary passes and sees various mags with Eve in the trash can, it was obvious that Mark would never get her now ‘I think I can help… both of them. He doesn’t give a shit about his intelligence, he only wanted Eve after all.’

And Mary goes to her lab… his lab. Using his magnetic card, she entered the building and all his equipment were in boxes. She found the three emitters, and several discs with his research almost damaged by the institute ‘if those people only knew.’ She put it all in a single box and installed it on her house’s basement. Only some basic components were fried, Mary could install a general-use new board cycles system on each device quickly.

At dawn, with everyone sleeping, she remotely connected her brother’s supercomputer. The three emitters were nano-aligned and Mary activates it. Her equations were different from Mark, ‘debugged’ as she said. But the equations that Mary saw as bugs, were safety locks created by him. Mark thought about his equations all his life, and Mary only in the last two days.

‘Now I can reach everyone, I can replicate realities…’ Mary said pressing the Green button. And using a GPS she located Gracie, the life harmonics could be only hers. And she located Eve, who was visiting her parents. Mary created a crude GUI to transfer traits as intelligence or physical beauty using Mark’s celestial musical melody. She would make Gracie tall as Eve, build like her, blond like her. And to Gracie it will look just like a miracle. Mark would be happy for life, and she will have his intelligence in return, it looked like a good deal to her, everyone will be pleased.

Mary put on her glasses and she press the Yellow button.

Like lasers from a german techno craziness, the emitters started to pulse faster creating the blinding dot of light. The lights from its magnetic field were surpassing the basement ‘is that normal?’ Mary asked herself.

And those magnetic field lights grew exponentially to reach the entire universe. Mary was unaware of that. People all around the world saw those lights invading their space, their rooms, their sleep, and their work. For a moment the universe was near to collapse, but then it held up together.

‘Mission accomplished’ said Mary turning off the devices. She stood up and bangs her head over the ceiling ‘what? This roof is low… but… but…’ she looks all around her and everything around was smaller. She looks down at herself and two giant breasts of the size of soccer balls invaded her view. Her previous big shirt only came to her waist now exposing her panties and abs. Her arm seemed giant to her, she flexed and its biceps tore both of her sleeves. They were maybe 18 or 19 inches ‘I’m… I’m athletic.. but how?’

Mary went to the display and read all recorded information passing page after page ‘fine… fine… fine… waaaiiit a minute…’ Eve’s traits were multiplied? And she saw her own hair, not just blond, but near white blond.

‘MARY!’ she heard Mark shouting. And he yelled her name again and again. Her shirt was near explosion, if she held up her breath it might survives. Mary took up the stairs not used to her longer legs and strides. And she found Mark on the top of the stairs holding up his oversized clothes around him.

‘You are tiny!’ Mary said holding her surprise.

‘What was that light all over the bedroom?’ he tried to walk but oversized pants made him fall in to the stairs. Mary took him in her arms ‘Mary, you grew! You are blond!’

And they turned the TV on. The anchor now had a tiny voice. And all the channels gave the same news: “All women in the planet are all over six feet tall and became white blond. Reports that all males were reduced in size to an average of five feet. The reasons are unclear to everyone. This is beyond science and everything we know.”

Mark looks up at Mary ‘you are the one who did it!’

‘Me?!’ she said as her shirt explodes and rapidly covered up the huge breasts with her muscular arms. The TV still gave more news: and all women seem to be younger, from sixteen years and up. ‘oh, shit’ Mary said. The telephone ringed, were their parents, Mary answered still holding her breasts. ‘yes, daddy, yes, I am, I’m over six feet tall and blonde… Mom is too? …shit.’

‘What you’ve done?!’ Mark demanded an answer.

‘I… I need to dress something.’ Mary went through Mark’s dresser and took a Hard Rock cafe shirt that would fit her. She looks at herself over the mirror and sees her body filling his shirt. It was still Mary, but added with layers of Eve’s multiplied beauty. Her eyes turned deep blue instead of Eve’s purple eyes. ‘But why all these muscles?’ she flexed them. And then she flexed them again staring at the hard curves of her arms. She flares her back wide open to the mirror ‘that’s so different…’ Flexing her leg and butt to the mirror she made her panties to snap away. She took one of Mark’s bicycle shorts ‘that will hold up this mass of muscles… damn, look at this. All women in the world look like this now?’ She goes own but didn’t find Mark near the TV, so she goes to the basement.

Mark was holding one of the emitters ‘can you tell me all from the beginning?’ he said in a very controlled cold rage.

‘I… I… was trying to help…’

‘How did you did this?’ Mark exasperated pointed to his equipment repaired.

‘Those main boards had a very low leakage inductance, so I corrected the…’

Mark didn’t want to hear any other word ‘you fucking stupid, retarded moron! Did you… you steal my knowledge?!’

‘And your intelligence…’ she said with a voice full of guilty ‘but I didn’t steal it, the fault was yours.’

‘Yes, it was mine. To let you to be at my side. Shit, now we need to revert it all somehow… why you did this? Look at me! I’m looking like a fucking kid!’

‘All guys are…’ She said seating down looking him at his eyes.

‘Doesn’t matter, you are irresponsible like you always were, how could you be so stupid! So dumb!’ Mark just kept going infuriated almost spiting on her.

‘Don’t call me dumb…’ Mary was losing her tolerance over his tiny brother.

‘Yes, you are, a retarded idiot tha…’

Mary caught Mark’s neck and lifts him to her eyes ‘if I were you, in your position; I would treat a little better your sister. Not only she’s the only one with the brains to help you, but strong enough to make a pulp out of you.’

Mark saw how serious was her threat and her biceps ‘…okay…’ and Mary put him on the floor. ‘b… but why you did it?’

‘I figure out that the transfer between you and me could be recreated and replicated into all human properties, so I wanted to make Gracie beautiful as Eve.’

‘Eve?’

‘But it not just multiplied Eve’s… properties, but it made all girls to receive it’

‘At men’s sake!’

‘I was using all the population to benefit Gracie, so no one would notices. But it backfired…’ she said flexing her arms again. Mark always had a weakness for strong girls.

‘Why Gracie?’

‘She has a crush on you… I was helping to get you two together.’

Mark didn’t care how well intentioned she was. Mary made him lose his prestige, his Nobel Prize. She stole his life. But at the same time he had to convince her to give back his intelligence. ‘Look, is not so bad, ok, maybe I’m has been an asshole to you all these years, let’s correct the situation, and after this, I’ll treat you with the respect you deserves.’ 

‘I don’t know… Why I should trust you?’

Mark get infuriated again by her answer ‘because its mine! It’s all mine. I’m the genius. You are fucking thief! Give it me back!’

Mary took a deep breath before answering ‘I think that maybe you should have a lesson or two in being more humble. Once you learned your lesson, I’ll think about it.’

‘I’ll tell the world what you’ve just done.’

‘Okay, go ahead. Make the news…’ Mary stood up gazing down at him. There was more than a foot of height difference between the two siblings, and she completed her phrase: ‘…genius.’ Mary didn’t felt so guilty anymore, but instead she had this much better feeling of being so much smarter, taller, stronger than him, and in control. He would learn his lesson.

THIS IS THE END OF PART I