Sweeping the Competition

Commissioned by Magna

Written by HikerAngel

After many sleepless nights, Dr. Kurt’s magnum opus had been completed.

He struggled to keep lightheaded chuckles riding out on his breath as he gazed upon a small vial holding what could be humanity’s next step in evolution. Except that this wasn’t for humanity, this one was going to be all for him.

He’d release a weaker version of the serum down the line, sure. One without the unique “competitive” aspect of it he had added. He wanted to save the potent material for the one person he cared about the most: himself. Of course, Dr. Kurt couldn’t just tell the superiors at the company he worked at that this was his plan. It was a dog-eat-dog world out there! If he clued them in to what his version of the serum could do, they’d probably send a hitman after him just to get their hands on a mere drop of it!

His plan was simple: He’d drink it tomorrow after a good night’s sleep. He hadn’t tested the effects of the serum on a tired subject and he knew that he’d only have one shot at this. This was going to work, he was going to be-

“Um, D-Dr. Kurt? A-are you almost f-finished in here?”

His brilliant train of thought was interrupted by a vaguely familiar voice, one he found instantly ear-grating. Turning to face the source of the annoyance, he spotted the lowly cleaning lady meekly peeking her head into the door frame with a mop in hand.

The doctor sneered subtly, turning his attention back to his work as he reluctantly began to wrap up.

“I’ll be leaving in just a moment. Wait outside.”

He wanted to respond more thoroughly, but Dr. Kurt remembered that he didn’t really care. She was a rather chubby woman of hispanic descent, but that’s literally all he knew about her. The woman’s name even eluded him. He probably would have felt embarrassed about it if she wasn’t literally the most forgettable person on the planet to him. She cleaned his lab after hours, literally anyone could do that job!

He put all of the “retail-safe” variants of his creation into more standard-issue containers. But, in order to not draw suspicion and because he didn’t have a lot of time with the cleaner waiting outside and such, he quickly poured his version into his personal thermos marked “Robin,” which was his first name.

He spent a large chunk of time hastily gathering his other supplies, not wanting anyone else to gaze upon his research. It wasn’t until he had driven halfway home that he realized he left his thermos with the concoction in his lab’s office.

“Oh well,” he thought aloud as he drove alone. “It’s not like anyone’s going to suspect that such an innocuous item holds the key to my grand ascension.”

Meanwhile, the cleaning lady paused to rub her tired eyes. This was the fifth lab she had cleaned tonight, with eight left on the floor to go. These labs weren’t broom closets either, they were expansive! Easily possessing more surface area than most college lecture halls.

But Ms. Ortez was a weak-willed woman who didn’t fight back on a lot of policy changes. She was silently thankful when she became one of the only members of the cleaning staff not laid off by employee cuts, but on nights like these, she was beginning to wish she had stood up more for her compatriots.

It was not like anyone above her ever thanked her for being the only person who cleaned up everyone’s messes! All of the scientists and other higher ups flat out ignored her. She was invisible to them, seen as an unfeeling cog in the machine who was expected to do her minimum-wage duties without question. It certainly didn’t help that her personality fit that type of cog perfectly, even if deep down she desired respect and admiration like everyone else.

But as her disinfecting of the room neared complete, a glimmer of recognition caught her eye.

“W-what’s this? Did D-Dr. Kurt leave a cup of coffee out f-f-for me?”

If the brilliant doctor had so much as bothered to glance at Ms. Ortez’s name tag, he probably would have noticed that the two of them shared the rather gender-neutral first name of “Robin.”

And if Robin Ortiz hadn’t been so harshly ignored by those around her, she probably would have thought twice before greedily gulping down whatever was in that cup with “her” name on it. But by the time she noticed it’s strange aftertaste, every drop of it had already been thoroughly swallowed by her.

She scrunched her face as the strange liquid took effect instantly. Although, to her, all she noticed were the intended effects of the “coffee.” She felt awake now! Energized even! In fact, she felt like she was ready to take on the world!

“Wow! That scientist really knew how to brew a good cup of coffee! Although, I should definitely let him know tomorrow that the pungent aftertaste could definitely be improved.”

As Robin returned to cleaning the other rooms at nearly twice her usual speed, she clearly neglected to notice just how unusual that pair of sentences sounded exiting her mouth. For starters, the stutter that had been a staple of her speech patterns was completely absent. Her voice sounded far more confident and her word choices far more meticulous.

Secondly, since when was she someone to offer criticism on something as kind-hearted as a free gift? Her mother had always taught her to be as grateful as possible! That kind of talk would have gotten her slapped!

Finishing her job at record time, she clocked out and made her way back to her tiny apartment. She noticed her shift manager sneer at her for leaving so early, knowing that he could now deduct her pay for leaving early. But she didn’t dare look back. For some reason, she now understood that talking to him would be a huge waste of her time.

She didn’t sleep that night, nor did she try to. She was still energized from that coffee she drank! Time was of the essence! There was no time to sleep! She had to seize the moment!

Robin looked around her cluttered apartment. “Ugh, this simply will not do,” she said with her hands on her hips. “I’m getting sick of putting up with this crappy housing! I deserve better!”

Without the fatigue or timidness to hold her back, she sat down at her computer and began to work away. Plans began to form within her head, ones that the Robin Ortiz from just a few hours ago could never have thought up.

In a span of mere hours, she taught herself photoshop, pirated and read through a ton of academic novels and even memorized the names, locations and backgrounds of every single person within the facility she worked at. She wasn’t even particularly sure why she was doing all this, outside of a vague desire to be “better.”

By the time the sun rose in the morning, she had all her bases covered. With all the books she had read and studying she had done, Robin felt she had all of the qualifications of a biochemistry major fresh out of college. With that in mind, she had also used her newfound knowledge of photoshop to expertly fake a college degree, as well as a resume with nuanced sources.

If she wanted to improve her living conditions, she was now prepared to work harder than any human physically could.

She set up a job interview first thing in the morning, upon seeing her faxed resume, they had to accept.

Her final piece of the plan ended up having a slight road bump, but it was nothing too major. If anything, it made her chances even more tantalizing.

She had just slipped into the one fancy dress-suit she owned, discovering that it rode more than a little bit high on her. It had been a while since she had worn it, perhaps that would explain why it was squeezing her body so thoroughly.

What a window of two years didn’t explain was how she had grown a solid five inches of height last night. That definitely picked up in the mirror. While Robin definitely noticed it subconsciously, there was simply no time to dwell on such trivial details! So what if she had grown half a foot? She looked absolutely stunning.

Slipping into high heels added only more height to her desirable form as she stepped out the door. On her trek, both on the street and through the facility, she found that people had been catching whatever glances they could at her body, mostly her meaty posterior.

It wasn’t just the change of clothes that had people gawking all the way to the interview office, her waist had gotten significantly larger, her thighs threatening to tear the pencil skirt she wore should she take too long of a stride.

Needless to say, Robin nailed the interview. She had a certain tenacity to her that she hadn’t before. All the men in that room were experienced interviewers who already had implicit biases against women, especially women of color, yet her presence gave off an aura that made her an irresistible choice towards them.

She simply was the perfect candidate who had come out of nowhere.

“Well, Ms. Ortiz, we’re frankly blown away by your capabilities! How’s 90k sound?”

That was a lot of money. It was also a rhetorical question. But Robin wasn’t satisfied, she knew that the average was closer to 100k for a biochemist. She was being sold short.

“Oh no, that simply won’t do. I’ll need at least 120k as a starting salary.”

The head of the company, Mr. Smit, visibly flinched.

“P-preposterous! You have no prior work experience! You should be fortunate to accept what you’ve been given!”

“Oh really? No prior work experience?” She stood up and gently placed her hands on the table. To them, she almost seemed to grow as she got on her feet, looking down upon the five lead board members. “Funny you should say that, considering when you, Mr. Smit, were hired by your father for the same position, he paid you 130k per year with no prior work experience. I feel 120K is quite generous.”

All eyes in the room were on the owner of the company now, as if that were a grand reveal to everyone else as well, even Robin herself. She put her hand to her mouth, as if she had spoken a series of naughty words. She remembered researching all of that, but it was as if her brain was three steps ahead of her actual consciousness.

“H-how did you k-”

“You’ll be surprised what’s publicly available on the internet if you know where to look.”

Once again, her mouth spoke before she could even consider what was being spoken out of it. But thankfully for her, it was exactly what she needed to say. Like the final jigsaw piece falling into place.

Needless to say, she got the job with no caveats.

As she walked out of the company after a successful first day of work, it all clicked for her at that moment. Exiting, she locked eyes with her once cleaning shift manager, someone who she now outranked in the company. He was speechless as his brain was stunted by her flawless body, but Robin had a few choice words for him.

“Looks like this company’s short a cleaner now. Get to work, loser.”

And with that, she strutted out of the building with a smile on her face, which ended up devolving into childish giggling as what Robin once was slipped through.

It was only upon arriving home that she began to consider what had just happened. In a 24 hour span, she had gone from the lowest paying job in the company to one of the highest ones. She had done everything flawlessly and she didn’t even feel tired! It was like being in a half-lucid dream state, except she almost didn’t want to wake up.

“Is... is this really what I want?” She found herself asking as she gazed upon her delightfully sexy body that had only appeared more beautiful since yesterday. “Am I really about to do all this?”

But her mind answered immediately with a “yes.” It suddenly felt like the most obvious answer in the world.

She wanted more. She needed more. Usurping her jerk of a cleaning manager wasn’t enough for her. All those scientists who had never given her the time of day? She would burn her name into their memories.

As she sat down to take off her high heels, she began to fantasize about all sorts of advanced planning. She had mastered the biochemistry position, but that was only half of the business. The company was a manufacturing one at the end of the day. If she wanted to get ahead, she’d have to get a business degree.

More pumped than ever to continue her ascension up the corporate ladder, she stood up from her chair only to pause slightly. Had she actually taken her high heels off? She looked over to the counter, there they were. Yet she didn’t feel any shorter without them. Had she grown taller? Looking in the mirror certainly conveyed that.

No. She was always this tall. She was always this beautiful. Her ass was always that fat. What did it matter if her height was pushing on six feet? That only proved that the people she looked down upon should just grow taller if they really wanted to compete!

Not wanting to waste any more time, Robin got to work on her overnight Business degree. Even after not sleeping for over 72 hours straight, her work speed was faster than it had been last night. She blazed through required reading, scanning through page after page in mere seconds without tire. In just half the time it had taken to complete the “graduation” process yesterday, she had gotten a degree in Business.

But now was no time to rest, she still had nine hours before she had to go to work! Without even having to think about it, her brain began to prepare everything for her next big hurdle forward.

She immediately went to an online store and placed several orders for various fabrics and sewing equipment. Was it perhaps to make more suits by hand? Why was she not just ordering them for herself? All these questions that Robin asked, and they were for her own body and mind! Despite her qualms, she refused to interrupt. Her body had gotten her this far, who was she to question it?

~

Entering her first true day on the job, she was immediately confronted with a slight problem.

“Hey! You! New hire!”

Robin’s immediate reaction was to freeze and apologize profusely, but that didn’t happen. Instead, she turned around to greet the voice with a mildly irked face. Who she saw was a disheveled man nearing her with stomping feet. Once he got close to her, however, he paused his approach and pivoted backwards slightly, most likely due to her misleading height.

“Woah, I um… Wait, do I know you from somewhere?”

Robin could have said the same thing about the man, but didn’t. It was Dr. Kurt, his face was overflowing with desperation and it appeared as though he hadn’t kept up his appearance since the two Robins had last crossed paths.

When all the tall latina had to say in response was a raised eyebrow, he swallowed hard and straightened his posture.

“Uh, um, what I meant to say was… ahem!”

Thankfully, Robin’s enhanced judgement managed to keep a massive smile from breaking out on her face at Dr. Kurt’s expense. This was amazing! Now the genius with the legitimate doctorate was stuttering and flubbing his words before the woman he had so casually dismissed for most of his career!

“Spit it out, unlike you I actually have important matters to attend to in this establishment.”

Her words straightened him out. All the while, Robin’s true consciousness was just as surprised as the disheveled doctor at what had just come out of her mouth.

“Uh, I j-just need to find out who uh, drank my coffee a few days ago. It’s, well, it’s kind of a big-”

“Is this a joke to you? Are you really that stuck up and petty that you’re still asking who drank your goddamn coffee two days after the incident?”

Dr. Kurt’s body shriveled with every deep-cutting, humiliating question. And then, to finish him off, Robin leaned forward until her cherry red lips were inches away from his quivering ear and whispered something only he could hear.

“You’re lucky I haven’t told anyone what was actually in that coffee cup of yours.”

Even though she couldn’t see it, Robin could feel Dr. Kurt’s eyes widen in fear as a tiny squeal escaped his mouth.

Without looking back, she continued toward her intended destination as if nothing had happened, leaving her “equally-ranked” adversary stunned and speechless. Even after the click-clack of her heels had vanished, Kurt remained. His mind had pieced together everything yet was at an utter loss of what to do next.

Meanwhile, Robin Ortiz’s brain knew exactly what to do next. She took a hard right and entered the nearest elevator, feeling her clothes tighten with every step.

Gazing into the side mirror as the metal box rose to her floor, Robin’s initial reaction was that of astonishment.

Had she always been this beautiful? Had her posterior always been such a flawless specimen to gaze upon? She gave it a brief consideration before dismissing it entirely.

No. She was always this perfect. Of course someone as affluent and influential as her would be this drop-dead gorgeous!

After three floors of reaffirmation, she had only just noticed the trembling cleaning woman that she had been sharing the elevator with. The new hire was far tinier than her, wait… was she? She appeared to be wearing the same sized uniform that Robin wore when she was in that position, but Robin was easily a whole foot taller! Did that mean she had grown to a ridiculous 6’8?

Robin’s pondering was cut short when the elevator chime dinged and the doors opened to her floor. Her head ducked slightly under the exit as she left the poor cleaner alone in the elevator.

It was only then that Robin realized she was on the wrong floor. Had she spent too much time looking at the mirror? This was the floor where business deals were made! She was just a bio engineer! Had her body made a mistake?

However, unbeknownst to even her, her hand had nonchalantly slipped a certain item into the briefcase of one of the higher-ups. She was then out of there as soon as she had arrived, not drawing any suspicion to herself despite being easily the tallest person in the entire building.

As she took the elevator down to her lab space, she could feel her clothes strain and even tear slightly.

The cloth on her body just couldn’t handle a girlboss winning, Robin thought.

Upon another successful day at work, Robin’s outfit was becoming a little too close for comfort, especially around her waist.

Her attire simply could not contain her expansive ass by the time she arrived home at her apartment, ripping and tearing in several places. But Robin knew that was because the suit was old and from a time where she could afford very little. Now that she was a self-made woman rising the ranks, her body understood that she simply deserved better.

Now that the sewing equipment had arrived precisely on time, Robin got straight to work, her perfect mind cutting a 2-4 week process down to just a single night. By the time the sun rose, she had a suit that not only resembled the most fashionable and expensive in the industry, but used her knowledge of bio-engineering to create a fabric that could accommodate even the most unwieldy of bodies.

If her gorgeously pear-shaped form was to become any more perfect than it already was, this was an essential wear.

Third day at work, and the status quo had already been irreparably shaken. A man in a business suit, kicking and screaming as he was being dragged away by the authorities, was one that looked rather familiar.

The other four heads of the company were all silently watching the process unfold, Mr. Smit had a hand over his head to convey a mix of tiredness and disappointment.

“Oh no, is something wrong with Mr. Gant?”

Mr. Smit broke out of his trance of thought to put on a friendly facade for Robin.

“Oh yes, Ms. Robin. All is well. We are simply evicting a spy within our ranks.” He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device. “Does this look familiar to you?”

It totally did.

“I haven’t the faintest idea as to what that could be.”

“It’s a sound recording device, one that could be displaying audio to our competitors! Fortunately, our spy wasn’t too clever about how he hid it. Security discovered the device this morning when they searched his bag after he set off the metal detector.”

“Oh, well that’s quite a shame. I assume he’s being fired, then?”

“Of course. Authorities are dealing with him, post-haste!” Mr. Smit seemed a little disheveled by such a sentence. “However, him being fired leaves us with no immediate replacement for second in command! We have none who could even begin to qualify for such a lucrative position!”

And then, it all clicked together for Robin. A sly smile couldn’t help but form itself on her face once she pieced together her body’s plan.

“Well, Mr. Kurt, dare I say you may have the perfect candidate before you.”

~

Upon seeing her business degree, Mr. Smit couldn’t help but say yes. Her impressive degree plus his desperation and her perfect body taunting him created the perfect cocktail for the situation to work out in Robin’s favor.

Now, with “Ms. Robin Ortiz, Chief Executive Officer” proudly displayed upon her desk in fine gold, life had never looked better for the custodian-turned-CEO. Papers were dedicating headline articles toward her meteoric rise and she could not help but bask in the glory of it all. It was “inspiring” to see a “Hispanic woman rise from nothing.”

Life was good for Robin.

But life could always be better.

As Dr. Kurt slaved away, he had finally managed to fully recreate the serum that had been so rightlessly stolen from him last time. This time, he wouldn’t even wait until tomorrow. As soon as the centrifuge rang complete, it was going straight into his mouth. He had covered all his bases to make sure that no one would usurp his power, accidentally or otherwise. Or so he thought.

“Hello there, Dr. Kurt. May I come in?”

He fumbled like a student looking at porn, desperately trying to hide his guilty items. The woman at the door was literally the last person he wanted to see right now.

“A-actually no, Ms. Ortiz! You may not! I’m in the middle of something! Dangerous chemicals! Highly volatile!”

“Oh please, I’m the CEO. That question was a rhetorical one.”

She began to pace around the lab rather nonchalantly, pausing to tinker with random inventions that caught her eye. The frightened scientist followed her every movement like scared prey naturally would.

“I believe you have a finished product for me, don’t you, Dr. Kurt?”

“W-w-what… ah… what makes you so sure of that?”

Every joint in his body was physically trembling as she got closer and closer, her intimidating 7’1 height becoming a more pressing reality as she leaned over him.

“Don’t forget, I could have you fired for using company property for your own material gains. Perhaps I should remind Mr. Smit about what was in that coffee mug of yours?”

Dr. Kurt’s breathing quickened. Reaching behind him, he firmly gripped the last of his serum. Shaking like a porch umbrella in a thunderstorm, he was planning on making a run for it.

“If I give you this serum…” his foot pivoted slightly. “You’ll just drink it, won’t you?”

He quickly made a mad dash for the exit, but his entire body was interrupted by… nothing. There was nothing obstructing his path, but it was as if his body was instantly cast within a fine resin. His running animation was comically frozen in place!

Then, without anyone actually touching the vial in his hand, it slipped free from his grip and floated daintily through the air until it landed firmly in Ms. Ortiz’s grasp.

Both Robins were equally stunned by this development. Did the recently-appointed CEO acquire latent telekinesis!?

But Robin Ortiz’s body could not be surprised. Therefore, it wasted no time popping open the vial and emptying its contents into her mouth.

“Aaahhh… Well, Mr. Kurt, you guessed correctly. I would just drink it.”

The brilliant doctor watched in horror from his frozen existential nightmare as his one true adversary grew only more powerful by the passing minute. Her height ascended to nearly eight feet. Her mighty motherly bosom threatened to rip even her modified pencil skirt. Her face became almost painful to resist staring for hours on end.

Her invisible grip on Dr. Kurt ceased and his running animation resumed, but it quickly faltered. There was no point in trying to run. There was no point in trying anything now. She had so much of a positional advantage over him at this point all he could really do was crawl up into a ball and lie on the floor in agony.

The once-promising scientist had been utterly broken by a mere janitor.

“Get up, Dr. Kurt. I don’t pay you to lie around on the job like a useless dog, do I?” She wouldn’t even let him wallow in defeat. He did as he was told. He had to. He returned to his studies on making a more marketable version of the serum, should his secret that the two of them shared ever come to light, Ms. Ortiz would make sure that he took all of the blame for it.

Yet, before she left the lab, she paused in the doorway, her head ducked below the frame, throwing him a sultry side-eye.

“Credit where credit is due, I’m impressed. You actually fixed the aftertaste on this one.”

A few months went by, the longest span that Robin had gone without a new promotion, but it made some semblance of sense. The only person still above her was the chairman, Mr. Smit. Yet he seemed firmly under her grasp as well. It wasn’t as if she actually did any work as the CEO, she mostly just bossed people around from her comfy office chair as her body continued to grow in both size and beauty.

People complained about her laziness, but she didn’t care. Mr. Smit couldn’t bring himself to even punish her, every time he entered her office he would just stare longingly at her before moving on to “more pressing matters.”

The amount of food she consumed tripled in amount and quintupled in price. Pretty soon, servants and chefs became almost as common as businessmen and engineers. Of course, her gluttonous tendencies did nothing to hamper her flawless body, its height now pushing the ten foot threshold.

Though her personal bio-engineered suit had been tailor made for such an incident, even it could not withstand the sheer gravitas of her awesomely sculpted body. It began to rip and tear, but she no longer cared. Allowing her dress to become further unadjusted with each passing day.

She finally had a perfect life and a mansion in the hills. Was her body finally content with her 700k salary?

Mr. Smit’s sudden and unexplainable death suggested otherwise.

No one could even pin the death on her. There was simply no amount of evidence in the world that could prove without a reasonable doubt that she had telekinetic powers that strategically attacked the heart of a perfectly healthy man.

Of course, she was next in line to usurp him. But she also didn’t hire anyone to replace her original position. Now as both chairman and CEO of the company, she was truly unstoppable. Her “habits” only got worse while her body only got larger and more beautiful.

She refused to wear clothes outside of public appearances, where she would have a suit custom-tailored at the company’s expense, only to incinerate it afterwards. Upper management complained about “work ethic,” but Robin had already taken care of that long ago.

“I-if you don’t put some clothes on, I-I’m gonna call HR!”

“I disbanded HR months ago, remember, Barry? You lauded it as a fantastic use of money management.”

As her body ascended to a ridiculous 14 feet of height, she had a custom elevator built near her new custom office that would allow her to completely avoid confrontation with those she deemed “common folk.” Of course, those she interacted with barely got a word in over her constant, furious masturbation sessions that seemed to take up most of her schedule.

People revolted, but it didn’t matter. She had all the policy-makers and politicians in her pocket at this stage in the game. To all the failed revolutionaries, she punished them not for starting the revolution, but because by doing so they were cutting down on her potential profits.

As long as the red line went up, so did her power.

~

A short walk from her custom-made office to her personal custom-made bathroom was made even shorter by the long strides her bare feet were able to make thanks to her record-breaking height.

Upon washing her slender hands within her gold-plated sink, a cursory glance up to the mirror caught her attention. It almost looked like a helpless face.

“Why am I doing all this? I-I was satisfied w-with the CEO position! Heck, j-just the engineering one would have been enough!”

“Don’t you get it?” The identical woman behind the reflective glass responded. “There is no ‘enough’ here. That’s not how this works. What we do is we grow bigger and bigger.”

“B-but what even is left? We’re already t-the head of the company?”

“Simple, we grow the company. The people love our products. How it makes them feel smarter and stronger, yet still reliant on that next hit. We expand. Soon, we'll be the richest person in the world. After that, we continue to expand until no one can even hope to top us. Just imagine how big we’ll be by then.”

Robin felt her hand reach towards her netherregions once more.

“N-no… I can still stop this. I-I can still stop myself. I-I can…-“

But then, she looked at everything around her. The glitz, the glamor, the body staring back at her in her own reflection.

And with that, the timid, stuttering Robin was no more. All her disappearing doubts allowed her to fully complete the merge with her more capitalistic side.

“Now…” she started with a sultry chuckle, her body growing an extra half foot. “...I think it’s time I run for president.”