Retirement was boring.

The 60-something giraffe geneticist had conquered many great feats within her lifetime as a master biology expert. Growing plants had never been easier under the watchful care of her team, and while they had never quite cracked their ambitious desired achievement of full genetic control her research had saved the lives of numerous people benefiting from the most experimental ideas she could devise.

But really, what did she ever get out of it?

Heralded as a genius, paid for her daughter to attend one of the most prestigious university archeology courses, established a comfortable life for herself for sure. Anyone would think this was enough, but Maarifa was ambitious, what was the point in settling for enough when there was so much science out there to explore.

When the call came rather unexpectedly from a benefactor interested in her work, of course she leapt at the opportunity. Not literally, old bones don't make good leaping tools.

It was obvious she was dealing with a young spoilt brat, some obscenely wealthy borzoi and heiress of a luxury cruise liner company. It is perhaps unsurprising then that the request was that of refining genetics into a beauty treatment, an all in one youthfulness extract and manipulation designed to give the patient their bodily desires.

It would take millions, if not billions to realise such research in reality. The giraffe scientist had a majority of the basics in her home lab, and her funder would supply the rest. It was as if the restrictions she had with her other projects were miraculously lifted by this mere girl.

It wouldn't take an exorbitant amount of time until Maarifa developed a baseline serum for the genetic rewrite. A gloopy ooze of sorts that could merge with blood plasma and integrate with the rest of the body through standard absorption, a substance powerful enough to prise its way into the structure of DNA itself.

Rewriting DNA was within the palm of her hands, but tauntingly still far away as you can't just obliterate DNA entirely and stay the same person. What she needed was a test, some way to alter her genetic code at a very small level; just enough to retain its overall shape but with a minor tweak to trigger a change that would not exist before.

Fortunately for her she had a relative, a daughter even, whose genetic code would of course bear a strong resemblance to her mothers. Lady Kubwa had become a giantess thanks to an extremely rare but naturally occurring mutation in her genetic structure, so if Maarifa could extract that and find a way to manipulate a mutation into doing whatever she wants....problem solved!

Though risky, this the way it had to be; it would take years even decades to find any other subject both compatible with each other and with a malleable genetic mutation. This was the key to opening up the path to altering someone's physical youth and beauty.

Pieces taken from her middle-aged daughters hairbrush in hand, the time came to test the theory....if the genetic compatability worked Maarifa estimated she could take 5 years off her physical maturity.

What's the worst that could happen?


PART 1
PART 2
PART 3

==============================================

Artwork ©  greedlust

Character, Maarifa Kubwa ©