The Time Mafia Makes a Bimbo
By Anostus
Inspired by an idea by KhakiAchilles.
Dr. Penelope Zimmerman looked around in wonder. She had seen the primitive 2D movies, and read the history books but seeing the early 21st century in person was completely different. The sights, the smells, the sounds—everything was better than she had imagined. She walked down the street and was pleased to find that nobody seemed to pay her any mind. Her careful research into period appropriate clothing and dialect had paid off. As far as they knew, she was just another contemporary of theirs and not one of the 24th century’s leading experts in chronophysics on a mission that she was sure would someday be mentioned in the same breath as the Moon landing or the first colonies on Mars.
She walked down the street and saw a Starbuck’s on the street corner. She could barely contain her excitement. After a lifetime of synthetic coffee, tasting the real thing sounded amazing to her. She had her chronometer run some calculations to make sure having this coffee wouldn’t cause catastrophic changes to the timeline.
EXPECTED DEVIANCE 0.001%
That was well within acceptable parameters.
“What would you like to order?” the barista asked her when she got to the counter.
“Um... I’ll have a, uh, caffè americano.” Penelope said.
“Alright, what size would you like?”
Penelope mentally kicked herself. Of course the 21st century didn’t have predictive portion sizing. How could she forget something so basic?
“Uh, what sizes are there?” Penelope asked hoping she wasn’t arousing too much suspicion.
“Well, there’s tall, grande, venti and trenta.” The barista explained pointing to the example cups on the counter.
Penelope looked at the cups. “I’ll have a... grande.”
“Alright, that will be $4.15.”
Penelope passed over some of the counterfeit money she had commissioned, and took her change and coffee over to her table. While she appreciated the subtle flavours that real coffee had to offer she leafed through an ad-filled free “newspaper” that she had seen walking in. This seemed like the perfect souvenir to take back with her. She was so engrossed in her reading, that she didn’t notice someone sit down across from her.
“What year are you from?” asked a gruff voice.
Penelope looked up at the man sitting across from her. He was dressed in a plaid shirt and overalls, and had a beanie on his head. His beard was long and unkempt and he didn’t look very bright. It was ridiculous to think a man like this had somehow discerned that she was a time traveller. He was probably just one of the many “unique” characters who populated the streets of the early 21st century.
“I-I’m sorry? I don’t understand what you mean.” Penelope said in a tone of mock confusion.
The stranger shook his head slowly. “Look, cut the act. My employer,” he lifted his hat revealing a small bluetooth headset in his ear, “already told me that you’re a time traveller. Now the question is, who are you and why are you here?”
Penelope’s mind raced. How was this possible? She looked around the shop trying to determine the best escape route.
The man grabbed her wrist roughly. “Don’t even think about running. Have your little toy calculate how much damage you running right now will do to the timeline.”
The man released her. She had no idea how this was happening, but if this stranger knew about her chronometer then maybe she did need to check how much damage her trying to escape would do.
EXPECTED DEVIANCE 70.43%
Penelope couldn’t help but gasp. “How can me leaving the table cause that much damage?”
The man smiled. “Let’s just say my employer has a scorched earth approach to getting what he wants... literally.”
“Who’s this employer of yours?”
“I’m asking the questions here,” the man snapped. “You have some idea of what my employer will do if you don’t cooperate, so just answer my questions and you’ll be on your way. So... who are you and why are you here?”
Penelope somehow doubted this man would just let her go, but she didn’t see how she had much of a choice.
“Alright, I’m Dr. Penelope Zimmerman. I’m a chronophysicist from the year 2569 and I’m testing a time machine I invented.”
The man touched his headset. “Did you get that?”
He listened to a response Penelope couldn’t hear, nodding periodically. Finally, he returned his attention to Penelope.
“Well, Penelope you’re in luck. My employer said we don’t have to erase you from time.”
Penelope didn’t know what to make of this. Was erasing someone from time even possible?
“So, am I free to go?” she asked.
“Absolutely. Once we’ve made a few adjustments to your timeline. We can’t have you inventing time travel, now, can we?”
Penelope went from scared to angry. “I’ve devoted my entire life to trying to shine a light on the mysteries of the universe. You can’t take that away from me!”
“Hm... you really have devoted a lot of your life to science. Perhaps some early interventions would move you away from such intellectual pursuits. You went to the best schools money could buy all your life, right?”
Penelope refused to answer the question, but she knew he knew the answer.
“Well, what if my employer made a few choice investments a few centuries from now? Made it so your father ended up middle class instead of upper class?”
As he said this, Penelope felt her head go fuzzy. She had theorized about what a time traveller would experience if their timeline changed while they were in the past. The closest comparison she had was trying to remember a dream. She could clearly remember going to a fairly average high school, and getting a scholarship to a state university. And yet, if she strained she got wisps of another reality, where she lived in a big house and went to expensive prep schools and ended up at an Ivy League.
The man frowned. “Hm... it seems you still managed to invent time travel. How commendable. Maybe, if—”
“Wait! I have a question.”
The man looked unhappy with the interruption, but he humored her. “What is it?”
“Aren’t you about to cause a paradox? If I don’t invent time travel, then I won’t end up here. If I don’t end up here, then your employer won’t have a reason to make all these changes, right? But then if he doesn’t—”
“Enough! Yes, yes. My employer has come up with ways to deal with such trivialities. The universe doesn’t care if you arrive in this time using your time machine or my employer’s.”
Penelope let those words sink in. This man’s employer also had a time machine. She wasn’t the first one to discover time travel after all. Not that “first” had much meaning where time travel was involved.
The man stroked his beard. “Now where was I? Oh, right. Even starting from more modest means you managed to invent time travel. Maybe if your mind was more focused on other things besides science? My employer tells me you don’t have much of a sex drive.”
Penelope sighed. It made no difference if she answered or not—they seemed to know everything about her anyways. “No. I’ve never had a crush in my entire life, and the few relationships I have had were enough to convince me that my time was better spent on other pursuits.”
The man sat in thought for a few seconds. “What if my employer sabotaged the municipal water treatment in your city and flooded your tap water with hormones that increased your libido?”
Penelope’s head again went fuzzy. She tried to hold on to her memories, but the task was futile. She could half-remember the words she had just said about never having a crush and they struck her as absurd. She had crushed on boys from an early age. Her first boyfriend (though it barely counted) was in middle school. She had lost her virginity at 15, and if you added all the time she had spent single in her adult life it would barely add up to a month.
The sensation wasn’t limited to her head this time, though. Something about her body felt... off. Were her breasts bigger? Her hands went to her breasts. She knew this was a silly question, her breasts had always been this big of course, but some small part of her self image disagreed with this truth. Surely they were at least a cup size smaller than this?
The man smirked. “I think we’re getting warmer. You only co-invented time travel now. Your fiancé and you make quite the team, but I think we can fix that. What if my employer arranged things so that you didn’t meet your fiancé, by giving him a great scholarship to a different school?”
“No, don’t take Marco—” but even as she said the words she found herself wondering who she was even talking about.
The fuzzy feeling in her head was the only evidence that this Marco must have been in a relationship with her in a previous timeline. She was currently dating Dave. He wasn’t quite on her level intellectually, but she didn’t really care because he was great in the sack. As she daydreamed about her current boytoy, she didn’t even notice her chronometer slowly fading from existence in front of her.
The man let out a triumphant whoop that made Penelope jump. “Now, Penelope. Would you mind telling me again who you are and why you’re here?”
“Well, I’m Dr. Penelope Zimmerman and I’m a physicist from the year 2569. I’m here because a man told me he’d let me try his time machine. I’ve been very impressed with it so far.” Penelope frowned as the words came out of her mouth. That didn’t sound right.
“Alright, I think you’re free to go.”
Penelope smiled. “Thank you, now that I’ve seen this tech in action, I think I can try to reverse engineer it. Tell your employer I said thank you!”
The man groaned. “Actually, don’t leave quite yet. You’re too smart for your own good. I think I need to just turn you into a bimbo, this incremental stuff just isn’t working.”
Penolope laughed. “How do you propose to turn me into a bimbo?”
“Well, do you remember how often you used to miss class because you got sick? Almost like someone was specifically targeting you.”
There was that fuzzy feeling again. Penelope’s smile turned into a look of worry. “Wait, that was you? Please don’t—”
“Or how about the nurse who was super nice to you through all of the illnesses? Your dad always said you couldn’t wear makeup until you were 15, but she taught you the joys of makeup much earlier than that didn’t she?”
Warm memories flooded Penelope’s mind. She had always loved Nurse Kelly. She was grateful that Nurse Kelly had shown her how much fun makeup was. It had become something of a lifelong obsession for her. “No! How could Nurse Kelly be working for your employer!?”
“You didn’t do very well on standardized tests either did you? Almost as if someone hacked the system from an early age and made the reports come back with much lower scores than your actual results.”
Again Penelope’s reality shifted. Dr. Penelope Zimmerman was no more. Between her low grades due to constant illness, and not doing well on standardized tests she had realized pretty early that academics wasn’t going to be her strong suit. Her clothing changed to a skirt so short it was almost a belt, and a top that was basically a sports bra. She was a pretty girl with a very active sex drive, so to her the path had been obvious... “Wait, I was actually smart the whole time?”
“Not the whole time I’m afraid,” the man said with a smirk. “My employer tells me that he stopped having to replace your tests around 8th grade. You had already given up on school by then.”
Penelope began to burn with anger. Had these people really messed with her entire life like this? She wanted to say something, but words weren’t coming.
“That wasn’t all that you went through, right? At 18 you won a contest you probably didn’t remember entering. Free plastic surgery is free plastic surgery though, right?”
Penelope’s body again changed. Plastic surgery in the the 24th century was nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. A forehead lift, rhinoplasty and breast augmentation had been the totality of that first surgery. But after one surgery she was hooked—since then she had dozens of procedures done, chasing her feminine ideal. Now her breasts were enormous, her lips were perfect for blowjobs and her hips and ass were proportioned to compliment her appearance. She had spent a lot of money to look this way, and she was proud of the final result.
The man continued. “No story like yours is complete without its dark side though, is it? Wasn’t it Nurse Kelly who introduced you to the world of hyperacid, nitromolly and novaheroine on your 21st birthday?”
This time, when Penelope’s mind went fuzzy she also found her thoughts getting a bit muddy and slowing down. The synthdrugs of the 24th century were marvels of modern science. Better than everyday life in every respect, save one. They took their toll on the brain. This hadn’t mattered much to Penelope since her brain wasn’t her strong suit anyways. Soon nothing mattered except sex and drugs, or the transcendental combination of the two. Having lived this way for almost a decade, Penelope’s mind was fried. She was the perfect picture of synthdrug burnout.
Penelope had to think about what he said several times before it made sense. Then she couldn’t stop giggling. “Woah, that was, like, you guys? Thank you guys so much!”
The man gazed at her with a look of satisfaction. “Now, could you tell me who you are and why you are here?”
Penelope had a blank look for a few seconds and a little drool dribbled down her lips before she realized she had been asked a question. “Oh, me? My name is, like, Penny Hills and your employer paid me a lot of money to entertain you for the evening.” She giggled. “I’m not sure where I, like, am right now, though. I’ve never seen a city like this before...”
The man nodded happily. “Don’t worry about it, we’ll be sending you home once you’re done entertaining me.”
Penny smiled. The future was certainly looking bright for her.