“We need to go to the basketball gym.” Dr. Cushing gestured toward the door you had just entered through.
You frowned. “The gym? Why?”
Dr. Cushing grimaced. “Well,” she said, shifting uncomfortably. “You see...It’s the only space begin enough.” She held the door leading out of the infirmary open for you. “I’ll explain on the way.”
You followed Dr. Cushing out of the clinic. She turned and started walking toward toward the basketball gym. Not the main arena, but the smaller, older gymnasium used for intramurals and the non-money maker sports.
“So…” you prompted after a moment.
Dr. Cushing held up a hand, and waited for a couple of girls to pass them on the sidewalk. She turned her head, and watched them for a moment.
“I’m afraid there’s been an... unexpected development,” she said finally, once the students were out of earshot. “The fertilizer that Katie was exposed to is triggering some sort of… reaction.”
You felt your heart pounding. “What sort of reaction?”
The woman swallowed uncomfortably. “An extreme and rapid...hypertrophic response, throughout her body.” She turned and looked at you, but didn’t quite meet your eyes, and before you could ask what the hell she meant by hypertrophic response, she said, “she’s growing, Mr. Hightower. Beyond anything that should be possible. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
You blinked. “Growing? But...how...what..?”
Dr. Cushing continued on. “We noticed it not long after she arrived at the infirmary. She was complaining about her clothes being constricting, and her glasses not fitting right. At first, we thought she was just having some swelling from an allergic reaction. But then she outgrew her clothes. And kept growing. And growing. We had to keep moving her to progressively larger spaces as she outgrew each room. We realized we needed to get her out of the clinic before she outgrew it, so we got her to the gym and sealed it off.”
Your mind reeled as you tried to process what the scientist was telling you. Your daughter, potentially outgrowing a building. “H-how big is she now?” you eventually managed to ask.
Dr. Cushing nodded to a security guard milling around in front of the gym, then pushed open the heavy doors. “See for yourself,” she said, waving you inside.
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