Slimed

It was a boring time for Frank. The hefty raccoon had jobs on and off, and sometimes when there was a slow period in jobs, he had nothing to do but sit at in his home and play video games or browse the Internet. It wasn't good for his figure (or it was, if you thought like Frank did), and in the off seasons he was usually even more portly then when he was busy with a job. The only thing he didn't like about it was when his blue vest got a little too tight for his liking. His computer chair probably didn't appreciate his weight either, as the two huge marks were his rear went could attest too. On one overcast summer day, Frank had his AC on full, and at the moment was browsing Craig's list looking for some kind of job. He was scanning the lists, when his eyes fell upon one listing: "looking for someone willing to try different and new unique types of food, strong stomach required! Apply in person at...." Obviously, this really caught Frank's eyes! Besides his unique fur coloring, his species gave him a very strong stomach for strange foods. Since it was still early in the afternoon, and the place to apply wasn't far away, he decided to go visit them today. He excitedly got out of his chair (which went back to it's original shape with a sigh), and headed to the place in his car.

Luckily, he had a GPS in his car that he could input the address into, because he had never heard of the place before. While he was driving, Frank noticed the wind was starting to pick up. There were dark gray clouds coming his way, and he knew a Summer storm was going to happen soon, maybe tonight. He didn't have long to think about it though, because in a mere ten minutes he was already at the address. It was a nondescript building, unobtrusive and set back in the woods about a quarter mile from a main road. He had to cross a bridge over a fairly wide river on the way to the house. The house itself was only two stories high, and looked like it used to be a family's residence. There were two other cars parked there, and he decided he better hurry up and apply for the job before the storm hit them. He got to the door and knocked on it, and very promptly a feminine voice beckoned him in. Once inside, Frank very quickly observed his surroundings. He decided he was correct that a family used to live here, for it was furnished as such. There was an open room to his left with a couch and a TV, and on his right there was a kitchen. However, there were some things that pointed to the fact that this wasn't just a home anymore. For one, there were a bunch of cardboard boxes lying around. Most of them were closed but a few of them were open and strange metal devices and papers peeped out at him.

"Good to see an answer to our ad so quickly! My name is Samantha, though you can call me Sam." the feminine voice said, but this time Frank could see who it belonged to. A light orange cat  with long light brown hair sat behind a desk. She was wearing a lab coat, with a stain here and there. She looked like the type who didn't do much physical work in her life, and she was a little chubby for it. It only made her more likable though, and gave her a kind, motherly type of disposition. Her face was round and soft looking, and she was wearing a pair of tiny classes on her muzzle. It was apparent they were only for reading. The rest of her filled out her lab coat quite well, her stomach and chest gently using against the shirt visible beneath her coat. "Please, have a seat." Frank was relaxed by her appearance, and casually walked over and sat in the proffered chair in front of her desk. "Well, you certainly look like you could fill our ad's request! But let's give you a tiny test to see if you can really handle it." She reached under her desk, and a moment later came up with a plate of what looked like Jello. This stuff was a light mint green color, lukewarm, and gave off a fruity smell. There was a spoon on the side of the plate, and she picked it up and handed it to him. "If you can finish two spoonfuls, we'll know you're right for the job. This is an early batch of our project, and probably one of the worst tasting. If you can handle this, you can handle pretty much anything else we make."

"well, the car ride over here made me kinda hungry....." said Frank, who immediately took up the spoon in his fat paw and put a heaping pile of the green goo into his mouth. To say it tasted horrible would be an understatement. It was slimy, had a sickly sweet taste akin to fake banana flavoring (one of the few flavors Frank hates), and after he swallowed it there was a nasty after taste in his throat that reminded him of drinking orange juice after brushing his teeth. Still, he quickly swallowed another spoonful and set the spoon down. There was a rumbling in his stomach soon after, but it stopped fairly quickly. Sam smiled at Frank's face, which had a slightly greenish tint to it, and let out a short laugh. "Heh heh, congratulations! You're the first one to eat more then one spoonful of our first product!" Her whole body jiggled a little when she laughed, but now she looked at him in a more sympathetic way when she saw his face and said "don't worry, it may taste horrible but it's not bad for you or anything. If it makes you feel any better, I almost threw up after I tried it." Frank sat in his chair in a slump, rubbing his sizable stomach trying to make it settle. There were footsteps behind him, and another voice, a guy's this time said, "we finally find a suitable candidate?" Sam looked up and smiled, saying "looks like it Reggie, I didn't need to get the stomach pump out this time." Frank slowly looked over his shoulder, and saw a middle aged squirrel in a matching lab coat walking towards him.

Reggie's big fluffy tail was visible behind him, and he also wore glasses though his were bigger and thicker then Sam's. He was also skinnier then her, but he wasn't exactly fit either. He was one of those people who didn't exercise, yet somehow managed to not gain weight. Still, he looked nice enough. His huge glasses and thin frame might have made him look excessively nerdy, but he carried himself with confidence. He looked the perfect part of the scientist. "Yep, it looks like we've got the right one this time." "Oh, that's great! I was getting tired of trying the product myself. The slimy texture really doesn't agree with me." Frank was starting to feel better after the goo, and sat up straight now. "Well, now that I have the job, can you give me a little more info on what exactly you're doing here?" Sam stood up and said, "yes, of course! I'll give you the grand tour... I'm sorry, I don't know your name yet." "It's Frank, and if you don't mind taking the tour slowly, my stomach's still not feeling completely right.... *urp*" "Don't worry," said Reggie, "it's a fairly small operation we have going here, this won't take long." Frank followed Sam up some stairs to the second floor, to what turned out to be one huge room. "Without going into too much detail, this is pretty much were we work!" said Sam. The walls had been knocked down and there were only a few columns still standing to support the roof. What was really eye catching was all the scientific equipment.

Lab benches with all sorts of chemicals in beakers were lined against one wall, and all the windows were blocked by huge machines that were set up around all the remaining space on the wall. There were cabinets in the middle of the floor, as well as two desks each with their own computer. What was really eye catching was in the exact center of the room; three large class cylinders filled with a clear liquid of some sort that moved around and made waves seemingly of its own accord. There was a constant whirring noise from all the machines, and Sam had to speak up to be heard. "Well, this is where me and Reggie work. We've both lived here for about a year, working on perfecting that goo you just ate. That was pretty much our earliest model, and probably the worst tasting." "Uh, I don't mean to be rude," Frank began slightly nervously, "but I don't think you need all this equipment to make gelatin," he was in awe at all the expensive machines around him. "Well, if it was just gelatin, of course not." said Reggie with a tiny smirk and his tail swished in the air behind him. "Actually, it's not the flavored goo we have trouble making, if we wanted to make great tasting slime we could do that easily. The hard part is, getting the goo to make itself taste good."

This really stopped Frank short. His pudgy face scrunched up in confusion, and asked the natural question, "what?" Sam laughed a little at this, "heh heh, that was my reaction too when Reggie introduced the concept to me. What do you know about nanotechnology?" "Err, my only knowledge of them is just what I've learned from video games." "Well, at the very least then you know they're really tiny, efficient robots who accomplish tasks by working together in enormous numbers. Well, we've made a prototype of them designed to control the liquid you see in that cylinder. They inhabit the liquid, and propel it along to search for the correct nutrients to make the slime taste good, and be healthy at the same time! So far for testing, we set out random foods for it to absorb and test how nutritious and tasty it is at the end. They've been tasting progressively better, and all your job will consist of will be taste testing and offering criticism on how we can make it better. Eventually, we plan to be able to set it out in a grassy area, and have it make good tasting healthy slime from the nutrients in the plants and such without needing prepared food."

Reggie explained, "we plan on using it in a multitude of environments; soldiers won't have to carry ration packs, just a small vial of the nano bots and some gelatin, they let it loose in a field, and a few minutes later they have a meal. In impoverished areas in desperate need of nourishment, it can be used as an emergency food reserve until they can find some regular food. Still, it could last them a very long time if they use it correctly. One of our more ambitious plans is if a building collapsed and people are trapped in the rubble, we can send the already nutrient charged slime down to them to give them a little sustenance while rescue teams try and save them. Even if they're unconscious, we've programmed in their ability to go down someone's throat if they're too weak too move." Frank was starting to see just how useful this stuff could be. He had a few questions though. "About how much of this goo do you have?" "well, there's only those three cylinders you saw in those cylinders stored upstairs." "Won't the people who eat the slime eat the nano bots as well?" "Actually, I believe a simple demonstration would be easier. Follow me." Sam, Reggie, and Frank went down the stairs, and into a side room. Inside was a large table, with a few refrigerators and food cabinets along the wall.

Reggie opened a cabinet and took out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a plastic bag. He took it out of the bag and set it on the table, and reaching into one of his lab coat pockets, he took out a small vial of the clear gelatin. "The nano bots can currently detect food at a range of 20 feet. It can easily remember the path it took in a field to get back to the person who released it." He unscrewed the cap of the bottle and laid it down lengthwise on the table. The slime instantly started sliding towards the sandwich. It enveloped a corner of the sandwich, and changed color to a sandy brown as parts of the sandwich started dissolving into the goo. The goo grew larger as the sandwich dissolved into it, and in less then ten seconds almost the entire sandwich was gone save a few crumbs and a light brown pile of goo about half the size of the original sandwich. Frank was about to reach down and touch the goo, but Reggie graped his arm, "just a second...." The goo jiggled a few seconds, and a clear glob of the slime detached itself from the main group and slid back into the container Reggie had laid down. "That clear blob was nothing but a set amount of goo with the nano bots in it. Once it's dissolved it's target and, if necessary, traveled back to the person who set it loose, the nano bots leave nothing but the nutritious goo behind." Now Sam stuck her finger in it and transfered it to her mouth. "Hmmm.... Decent, but still needs some work." Frank followed her example, and he was surprised just how much it did taste like the sandwich, but it was a little watery.

Frank had one last question, "just one thing, these nano bots can't turn a person into a pile of goo, can they?" Reggie gave a short laugh, "I think you've seen too many horror movies, but I can understand where the question is coming from. No, no they can't. We've specifically programed into some of their most important and basic functions a protocol that stops them from dissolving anything that's even vaguely alive. You could put an ant in a huge bowl of pudding, and the goo would leave nothing but the ant. That example was actually a test we did conduct. The ant was completely fine afterwards." "Well," said Sam, "I guess you have an idea what to do. Could you be back here tomorrow at 10 AM?" "Sure, I may not have a big job, but at least it's something." Reggie held up a paw and interrupted whatever Sam was going to say, "wait a moment! Uh oh... Hear that?" They all listened, and quite clearly there was the sound of heavy rain. Soon there was a crash of thunder that shook the house. "Uh oh" groaned Sam, "a thunder storm means two things; One, the bridge you crossed to get here is going to be underwater. Two, we have to shut down and disconnect all our equipment just in case to make sure there's no damage done to it. Drat, and I had some stuff I really wanted to try before turning in for the night. Well, in regards to that first point, I hope you don't mind spending the night on the couch. There's only two beds here." Frank shrugged, "I don't mind, I can just relax and watch some TV." Sam nodded and said, "me and Reggie will probably join you in half an hour, we just have to finish some stuff first."

Frank had turned on the TV and was just about to plop his hinder down on the aforementioned couch, when the loudest crack of thunder he'd ever heard caused the whole house to shake and Frank to jump about a foot in the air. He came down with a bang, and the power flickered for a moment before coming back on. There was a crash and a scream, and then a muffled swear from Reggie. He and Sam both ran down the stairs, and Frank called out nervously, "what's wrong?" When he saw the goo sliding down the stairs after them, it was apparent what happened. Sam called out when she got to the bottom of the stairs "don't worry, don't worry! It's just searching for food, I got covered in the stuff when it spilled and I'm fine. Some of our equipment shorted out and we can't hit stop it right now, but all it's going to do is find food and dissolve it." Frank was immediately relived that a cheap horror movie scene hadn't become real, but was kinda sad when he noticed the goo go into the room with all the food. "Dangit," swore Reggie, "it's going to take us a lot of shopping to replace all that food and even more work to make that clear slime." All three watched as a seemingly never ending stream of the goo flowed down the stairs and into the food room. Finally, the thin film of slime going down the stairs stopped. "Well Frank, all the food's probably done being dissolved now, at the very least we can observe the effects, and you can see what it tastes like." They all had recovered from the shock, and now a state of curiosity was setting in with all of them.

They opened the door and were treated to quite a sight! The blob took up most of the room, and different parts of it were different colors. There were red hues, green tints, and all other shades of colors. "Wow, what kind of food did you keep in here?" "All kinds," responded Sam. "Vegetables, pastries, breakfast cereal, pastas, a little bit of everything!" The blob stopped jiggling for a moment, and slowly started to crawl towards them. "Uh... What's going on?" Frank asked, getting a little apprehensive again. "I'm not sure," Reggie responded equally nervously, "it's already been proved that it's not trying to dissolve us, but I'm afraid it got a little shock from that lightning. It may have changed some of it's protocols, like determining whether or not a person needs food or not...." The slime was around their feet now, and Frank almost giggled as he felt it go around his toes. It was lightly chilled from the food in the refrigerators, and as he tried to pull his feet up out of the goo, he found he couldn't. The goo was at his ankles now, and coming faster. Sam and Reggie were having similar trouble, and Sam was looking a little nervous as it reached her sizable thighs. The goo climbed up Reggie the fastest since he was the skinniest, and it pushed itself into his mouth. He made a "MMPH!" of protest but there was nothing he could do.

He could feel it going down into his stomach, and soon there was an uncharacteristic bulge. A shirt that used to be too big was snug, and slowly getting tighter. By now both Frank and Sam had the goo going into their mouths, and Frank relaxed when he tasted the goo. He was used to inflating, and great tasting goo was one of the better ways to do it! All kinds of flavors mixed together into one just gave it variety as it slid down his throat and into his stomach. All of their muzzles bulged outwards, Reggie's specifiacally due to his species. They were almost the size of grape fruits, and his stomach looked like a beach ball. The goo was covering all three of them almost completely, and Frank could tell he was being suspended above the ground on a layer of the goo. Sam had stopped struggling as well, and Frank could swear she was purring. Her belly bulged outwards, and Frank thought it looked quite nice on her. As Frank gulped down more and more, he could feel his whole body swelling. His limbs were getting larger, and his clothes were starting to get tight. Now his belly was huge, extending almost five feet ahead of him. The rest of his body seemed to be absorbing the goo as well, swelling until he heard his vest rip along his back. Reggie was getting a lot of the goo, since he was the smallest, his shirt was riding up his swollen stomach until it was completely visible. His whole face seemed to be getting fatter, growing multiple chins.

Sam was getting a fair bit of goo as well, with her whole body bulging outwards. Her face grew hugely, and there was a snapping noise as her belt beneath the goo broke in two. Sam's stomach jiggled outwards, free from it's restraints. She reached down through the goo and held her belly as it grew and grew. Her breasts were swelling as well, and her shirt was straining as they bulged out and doubled in size. Her stomach was getting more round and large, and her thighs were straining against their pants. Soon, she couldn't move her arms and they hung at sharp angles from her side, though the were being pushed up by her growing torso. Luckily for both her and Reggie, their lab coats were big and still had plenty of room for their ballooning bodies. Frank on the other hand, was only wearing his vest and a pair of pants. The pants had started to strain against his thighs as well, and Frank tried to reach for the button on the front. However, his fingers had swollen to the size of sausages and even if they hadn't, his gut was way too big for him to reach. Reggie was in the state of grudging acceptance at this point, while Sam and Frank were simply enjoying the goo. Reggie's belly was inflating much more then the rest of him, but his limbs were still swelling. He relaxed his body, and fell back onto his bulging rump. He just kind of slid into a more comfortable sitting position in the goo as he grew outwards. Sam and Frank noticed this move, and mimicked it. Frank's gut was now pushing up and outwards, and he could no longer see his legs even though he felt them being pushed out at angles from his widening midriff.

Sam made a muffled "oof" noise as her entire body stretched outwards all over. She was quickly becoming rounder and rounder, whereas Frank's limbs were being pushed to the sides, hers were being absorbed into her whole body. Her hands and feet were just bulges around her almost spherical body. The only things that were keeping her from being a perfect sphere were her head, tail (which itself was starting to look like a long balloon), and boobs. Reggie was inflating differently from both Frank and Sam. Instead of his whole body inflating, the slime was only staying in his belly. At this point, it had pushed his shirt up until there was almost nothing, until it finally shredded straight up the middle. His pants buttons had long since come undone, though it's not like they could see his underwear past his belly anyway. His belly had pushed back all his limbs to the sides, and now his arms couldn't even reach the half way point to the edge of his stomach. Most of the goo was gone at this point, but it still pushed itself down their throats even though they each had enough food to last them at least 3 winters. Reggie's stomach was bigger then his whole normal body by now, and caused him to roll forward until he was balanced with his tiny body on top. At this point Reggie's limbs were pushed back by his enormous gut, and his lab coat no longer covered even a quarter of his ballooning stomach.

Frank was inflating all over, each of his limbs were fat and heavy, and the clothes he had been wearing had long since shredded of this body. His face was huge and comically chubby, with huge cheeks and at least 4 massive chins that merged into his huge stomach. His gut rested to the floor, and while it was the biggest part of him, his thighs and rear were four times their normal size. Slowly, he began to realize that the slime was almost all gone, he was sitting on the floor again. His stomach gurgled as the last dregs of the slime climbed up the rest of his now mountainous body and down his throat. His whole body jiggled as the used some momentum to swing his gaze around, and he could get a clear view of both Reggie and Sam. Reggie was groaning, balancing on his mammoth stomach with his feet a good five feet above the ground. He was rubbing his stomach, and it made light sloshing noises and jiggled. Sam was like a ball, and she had rolled onto her back. Luckily, her pants had not ripped and only a bit of pink frilly underwear was showing. He could see her now comparatively tiny feet moving around a little, but her massive tummy blocked him from seeing anything else. "Well, I have to say this was an interesting first day at work! I'm sorry though, I can't think of any criticism for that delicious meal just now." "Oh, be quiet you lard ball," grumbled Reggie, "you're not getting paid overtime for however long you're immobile."