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Tinkering with the Artifact
By Nanomage

Section 12 was going through it's annual shutdown. For two months only security and a few minor staffers would be at the facility. A facility I might add, the government pretended did not exist. What we did here was dissect alien spacecraft, well the one of them we actually do have.

Though Section 12 sounds somewhat ominous, all it really means is that the labs here were testing and working with catalog items 1201 through 1300 of the wreckage found deep in the Rocky Mountains. It is one of 30 such places, the wreckage was extensive of a craft that we guess was almost half a mile long when it hit earth.

And the reason it is so hush hush, the craft was a warship. Energy weapons, Missiles, what we think is some kind of shield generators, sensor platforms. all the support gear such a ship would need. Two things scared us about it though, One, every skeleton onboard (it had been there for at least 8 thousand years) was unique, but mostly bipedal, Two, all the machines seemed to be somehow organic, not that they were flesh, but that there were no seams, no panels no screws bolts or welds in any of it. To analyze anything meant we had to cut it apart, so we wound up destroying more then learning. When we had multiples of something, we cut apart half of them, and tried to get the others to work or respond by pressing any odd part or tickling it with EM signals to get it to start.

That is what I do with my project, Catalog item 1256-24 the only intact one in this series. A football sized and shaped chunk of metallic mystery. it hummed to itself across a large portion of the EM spectrum, and my work has been to play signals back to it, and chart it's responses. Boring tedious work for the last 4 years.

Until 3 months ago. Now, over the last year or so, I was close, soo, soo, close. But my first breakthrough was when my lab computer hit a key sequence of signals. the next morning when I opened my lab, I found my signal generator a melted wreck, and a ball of metal hovering over it. I had to look the item up, Catalog Item 2391: tentatively identified as a hull repair module. I concealed the device, handed the wrecked generator to my assistant Jay Connor, and checked the logs for the sequence that had created the new object. Over the next few months I was getting more and more results as the machine's codes were becoming clearer, also it's function. it was a nanodevice generator for making spare parts! my storage room was filling with devices that I dared not show anyone. Why? Well, I had a plan as soon as I knew what I had here. Not for profit, but for a personal dream, one a bit to odd to ever let anyone know of.

The plan really came to me when I found the device had created Item 21107, which we were fairly sure was a neural interface device for running the ship's computers. But not one had been found in working order. Now I had one. It looked like an old fashioned clerical collar, and opened up to go around the neck.

I undid my tie, and slipped the thing on as soon as I saw it, then covered it up. A few moments later there was this mental "static" that became clearer and began making sense. Looking at my Nanofactory, I began trying to access it directly.

A hew hours later I had complete control of the device, and could make any catalog Item at will. more important to my plans, it could do the one thing I had hoped it could do........

Body modification nanodevices!

It could do two sorts, a 'seed' form where the nanos were stored in a coin sized disk. or an infective form that would spread over an area. The nanos that ate my equipment were the second sort, but were programed to create only one device when they encountered materials suitable to manufacture it, the rest go inactive. the only way the device knew what kind to make was if a containment wafer was inserted into a small arpeture. otherwise it made the other sort. Neat and tidy.

To go any further, I must explain a few oddities about myself, mainly sexual. When I was a snot nosed geeky kid, my family had a live in servant, a rather bounteously built young woman from Africa. As a 12 year old I followed her around as she did her duties, and even as a pre adolescent, fantasized. She returned home with a college degree a couple years later, but my interests had been fixed. and expanded as I spent time on the Internet absorbing the strange and wonderful.

Women with extra appendages and breasts, women with both genders intact, women with animal parts added in. By the time I had reached college, I had the perfect image of my dream date, and impossible by any means......

Until now.

Section 12 closes down for 2 months a year, to give researchers time to rest, and catch up with the doings of their respective professions. I was going to my retreat, a cabin deep in the pacific northwest and spend my time doing something that would get me shot and dumped in an unknown grave if the authorities even guessed. Jay, being a grunt level lab assistant, did not get time off, he would monitor my lab while I "rested"

And concealed in my clothing were the seeds for a dozen interesting devices.

I pulled up to my cabin in a rented minivan, In back were the normal equipment for a 'back to nature vacation' and boxes full of materials, metals and ores that covered the entire periodic table. In a rush I dragged all that stuff into the cabin. as soon as I had assembled it I cracked the first nanowafer.

An hour later I had an exact copy of Item 1256. And soon after, a neural interface, a device that can manufacture clothing to order, a general service robot (like everything it was a ball shaped thing that did its work with focused tractor beams) a sampling device meant to feed patterns to the nanofactory, and an energy pistol.

The device did not want to respond for a couple hours, it had a response to my neural collar that it was downloading. I guess that the device had no database and was somehow getting one from the one back in my lab.

But I already had the wafer for my dream woman, made at the lab before I left.

She would stand 5'6", and have base measurements of 38 EE, 24, 40. Round and voluptuous, her racial characteristics would be African, Hair would be tightly curled not kinky and would fall in ringlets. From here she began to diverge from human norms. She would have six breasts, arranged in pairs down the torso the bottom pair bracketing the navel. A second pair of arms, set behind and below the primary set I made her stronger and tougher than human norms, and gave her a base lifespan of 200 years and regenerative healing. Her ears were those of a horse, and would be able to move. A horse's tail coming out of her magnificent rear end. And at the knee, her legs would change to the forelegs of a horse. and at the crotch, she would have both male and female appendages, specially altered to function in slightly different ways than normal. And for my final detail, she would exude a pheromone that would give her a certain control over others of her kind.

Yes, I was planing a series of such delightful creatures.

I would use the items I had here to create a thousand wafers, each of the subordinate form. Then I would "disappear" and this magnificent goddess will appear out of nowhere and right into the hands of the media, who will be her protection while she offered a thousand lucky volunteers the chance to be like her.

The next morning, I held the wafer in my hand. Only a second of indecision, then I popped it into my mouth and crunched it. chewed the wafer and swallowed. An anticlimax, it would take several weeks to complete this change, but I was thrilled by it's beginning. The nanofactory was chugging away at creating the wafers for the other changelings. I had a place prepared for me to wait, a hot tub, running at about 80 degrees, a huge stack of food and the toilet right next to it just in case. I set the nanofactory next to it as it needed to have the wafers changed by hand.

Later that day, running a temperature of about 101 degrees, I settled into the tub, the nanos would work faster if I kept my body temp as low as I could.

I read a lot of books the next two weeks, I didn't like TV, though I had one with VCR attached, I watched movies and read. I also slept a lot. When I was not sleeping, I seemed to be doing a lot of eating, but didn't need the bathroom. but the tub's filtering system clogged with sludge a few times and I had to get out to clean it.

The first change I saw and felt was my middle toes enlarging and the other toes receding, by the 3rd day, I was able to stand on the single toe with my heel off the ground by about 4 inches, There were lumps behind my arms, as the new pair was beginning to form.

By day 5, I had a complete set of child sized arms, that I could move, and the hooves had fully formed, walking was not difficult, but the gait was a bit odd. My testicles were gone, and a vaginal slit replaced it but no depth yet. The skin was darkening and the 6 nipples were nearly full sized.

It took a week for the arms to get to full size, by then my hips had widened. the Penis moved up a bit on my pubis, and it was a bit larger and thicker than before. It could also be completely retracted into the body by deliberate thought. I tested it by masturbation and knew it was also complete, as I no longer ejaculated at orgasm, but the intense sensations went on for much longer. Ejaculation was not necessary, at orgasm now the entire head of the penis exuded an oily substance from a thousand tiny openings containing sperm. The Vagina had no clitoris, but I had made the labia minora capable of swelling and giving an orgasm when stimulated.

I was spending more and more time outside the hot tub now, learning to walk and use my new arms, and the tail which was more wonderful than I had imagined, as were the ears, which I could swivel around at will. In the next couple days the breasts began to swell and I was picking up the softer curves of a female. I spent a lot of time fondling my new boobs, and everything else too, when the fever broke, I was done.

The mirror showed me an incredible, exotic woman, dark as night and more weirdly sexy than I had imagined. I was eager to show it all off, but I had to be very careful. I thought about how I was going to present myself to the world. I would set up an interview, with a major news figure maybe a talk show host, and with the whole world watching, display my body, but in no way explain who I was or how I was capable of making this change in anyone who would join me.

I considered what a colony of us would be like, free to chose any kind of sexuality we wanted, all of us could be pregnant, but to limit breeding I had made it possible to do so only if a breeding pair separated themselves from the others, so we would be pregnant only by choice.

I spent the next month playing with myself, reading books and watching pornos, which did not have nearly as much appeal as before, I dreamed of women like myself, freely sharing love, and the objects of envy and desire.

I made with one of the other devices a kind of corset that displayed and supported my "six pack" and a set of spandex shorts that had a hole for my tail.

As much as I wanted too, I could not come to the world naked. I also made a trenchcoat kinda thing and a hat that would cover the ears. so I could drive out inconspicuously.

I made one last nanodevice, and buried the other equipment where I could find it later. the last thing I made was a nano to disassemble the factory. I set it off and watched the factory crumble to dust.

A couple days before I was due back to Section 12 there was a frenzied knocking at my door. As I jumped up I heard a female voice.

"Dr Williams! Open up if you can, we need you at the lab!"

I quickly scanned the room making sure that nothing of my crimes was visible, I picked up the energy gun, I could not let anyone put Dr Williams in the same place of the Goddess. I was prepared to vaporize anyone to keep that secret.

The pounding continued, "Doctor, open up, Item 1256 destroyed itself last night."

What? how could that happen?

"Doc, we have been to busy with the crises over the last month to get you up here, but things are stable now, it is safe, everything is OK now. Well, almost. Open the door."

A moment later "Break it open"

I covered the gun with a cloth but kept it pointed at the door.

The door exploded open and two people entered. I was about to fire when I realized that the person standing there was near to identical to myself, She was beautiful. Even the baggy shirt and pants she wore could not hide that. the other person was a man, but not for long, I could see holes in his shirt where the stubby pair of new arms were hanging out. Thinking quickly, I cried out, "My God, I am not the only freak in the world!"

"It's me, Jay," said the beautiful creature, "about 30% of people in the world changed and we don't know why. They figure it will be total in another couple months!"

The helicopter trip home was silent, I didn't want to talk, I was too busy thinking, and I used my pheromones to enforce it, and they worked fine, even the man who was partially changed responded to them.

Item 1256 at the lab was the same dust I had seen mine dissolve to. My opinion? both the devices must have shared a common "ID," and as I made something at the cabin, the same thing was made here. Not having storage wafers here, the nanos went aerosol and infective, and I could only guess that an unconscious desire made the device disable the safety factor, making the nanos completely infective.

Seems I am out of a job, and not going to be a goddess.

"Jay?" I said, pushing my pheromones to the limit.

"Yes Doc?" he answered

"Have you tried sex yet?" I ventured.

"No, the idea gives me the creeps," he shuddered.

"Why don't we give it a try? I pushed a bit harder.

"I don't know why, but...... yeah, OK, I gotta live with this right?"

"True, I don't see any cures out there"

It was a hell of a lot better than I thought it would be.