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Lab Accident

“Computer, run system diagnostics.”

System check… running diagnostics… all functions operational.

Just what Aki wanted to hear. He had come into the lab late one Saturday night to get some more work done before Monday and, seeing as he was the only one there that evening, couldn’t afford to let anything escape his attention.

You see, Aki was a lead scientist at a top-secret research facility, where much of his work focused on genetics and gene splicing. He’d already personally made several breakthroughs in the fields of medicine, cosmetics, and nutrition, and his impressive accomplishments throughout his career not only granted him clearance to all parts of the laboratory, but also saw him taking on more and more complicated—and dangerous—experiments. Needless to say, if anything went wrong in his line of work, the results were often, well, unpredictable.

What Aki didn’t account for, though, were the innocent mistakes made by his fellow researchers (and even himself, from time to time) that his sophisticated computer couldn’t detect—no matter how stringent the rules and regulations of the lab were, nothing could ever completely eliminate the factor of simple human error. If only Aki had thought to check the state of the lab before getting to work, his night would have turned out just like any other. Instead, Aki’s decision to come in alone that Saturday night on whim would change his life forever.

Aki was deep in thought as he continued his work from where he’d left off Friday afternoon. The lab’s latest client was something of an eccentric, a wealthy art collector with a passion for world mythologies, who was personally funding research to discover a way to transform him into a centaur. At first, everyone at the lab—Aki included—thought it impossible, but, when initial experiments yielded successful results (the art collector now had his own pet pegasus thanks to Aki’s hard work), efforts were redoubled to bring the art collector’s dreams to life.

Some hours into his overtime, Aki was running some simulations with a few equine gene samples he’d isolated alongside a powerful transformative catalyst he’d discovered during his research, the very same one that first allowed him to create the art collector’s pet pegasus. The past few months had been tricky—altering the human genome was no simple task, after all—but Aki was finally feeling confident he was close to cracking the centaurification code. Confident, and also hungry.

“Computer,” said Aki, “What time is it?”

The time is Eleven. Eleven. P.M.

Aki realized he hadn’t had anything to eat since lunchtime. The machine seemed to be running just fine, so Aki decided to let it finish its tests on its own while he got something from the vending machine in the breakroom. All his recent work with equine DNA left Aki thinking quite a bit about horses—their anatomy, how they moved, their diet—and so he chose an oatmeal creme pie to snack on before returning to work. Aki usually made healthier choices when it came to his food, but seeing as how close he felt to a breakthrough, Aki decided to enjoy his sugary snack as something of a preliminary celebration.

Aki savored the last few nibbles his treat as he returned to the testing lab, walking with a self-assured strut. Approaching the testing machine, Aki failed to notice that the cord that controlled the temperature of the machine was lifted somewhat from the ground—most assuredly from one of Aki’s colleagues unknowingly rolling over it with a swivel chair as they hurriedly left their station on Friday afternoon—and, in his overconfident stupor, Aki unwittingly tripped over the cord, unplugging the machine’s temperature regulator from the wall.

The machine churned to a halt as a red backup light illuminated its interior. Aki knew he only had seconds to act before the transformative catalyst within the machine became unstable, so Aki dropped to the floor and fumbled around for the power cord, desperately trying to plug it back in.

“There!” Aki said, returning the cord to the outlet. He stood up in a hurry to check that the levels of the machine were all returning to normal. At first, everything seemed just fine. Aki breathed a sigh of relief and made his way over to a computer to analyze some data, turning his back to the machine only briefly. Then, all of a sudden, the machine began sounding an alert as its indicators began to fluctuate wildly. Aki rushed over to the console to try to mitigate the input levels of the transformative catalyst, but quickly pulled his hands away when he touched its controls—the machine was red hot! In a panic, Aki tried desperately to think of a way to cool down the machine and stop the test, but in the blink of an eye, the chamber within the machine let out a burst of blinding light, and Aki’s vision went white.

Aki’s heart raced as a rush of fear and anxiety flooded his chest. He thought he was a goner for sure, or at least he had no expectation to survive this as the same man he was before. This was no ordinary light, you see: within it were thousands upon thousands of particles of the transformative catalyst containing the equine gene samples Aki had been working with, and as the light fully enveloped him, so too did these particles enter Aki’s body. But as they did, Aki felt warm, and all his worries faded away as his body began to change.

Though Aki still couldn’t see anything as the light’s intensity grew, he could feel his body shifting, morphing in the opaque whiteness. Aki realized he was growing taller while simultaneously being pushed forward by a strong, thick growth spreading between his hips and his legs, completely shredding his pants. Aki struggled to stay standing—his legs felt like they were about five feet below and behind him—but he was thrown completely off balance when two strange appendages suddenly shot out from where he guessed his hips were, tearing through the rest of his scrubs and pulling his lab coat from his shoulders. Aki fell forward and felt these new appendages make contact with the ground, but he was so unfamiliar with their coordination that they buckled under his weight and he felt a part of himself he didn’t recognize tumble onto the sleek, cold floor of the lab. Aki realized he could still feel his arms and raised his hands to his face to inspect it, lowering them down past his shoulders, his chest, and his abdomen to inspect his newly naked torso—from what he could tell, nothing about him had changed above the waist—but Aki pulled his hands away from him in shock when he felt an unfamiliar fur covering his body starting at his hips. Though the light still shone brightly, Aki was starting to understand what might have happened to him, but, being the scientist he was, waited until he could see for himself to confirm anything.

Aki noticed the whirring of the machine had grown quiet, and as its functions slowed to a halt, so too did the light erupting from it begin to fade. Aki rubbed his eyes and, as his vision returned to him, he reluctantly looked down at himself to see what exactly had happened to his body. As it turns out, Aki’s earlier confidence was well-founded, and all he could do in that moment was admire himself, his hands holding his head in surprise and his mouth agape.

“I… I don’t believe it! I… I’m a centaur… that means… that means the experiment was a success! I… what am I going to do now?!”

Aki was so caught up in his findings that he hadn’t had a chance to consider his next steps—hoofsteps, that is. He certainly hadn’t anticipated being the guinea pig—er, horse—in this eccentric art collector’s project, and Aki knew his client would want answers as soon as he saw him standing on four hooves at their weekly meeting come Monday afternoon. How was Aki going to replicate his results? He hadn’t had the chance to write anything down, and in his frenzy Aki was having trouble retracing his steps (footsteps, as he was still human at the time) in the moments leading up to his transformation.

Aki knew he wouldn’t get anywhere if he panicked, so he collected his thoughts and caught his breath. “Computer? What time is it?”

The time is three. Forty-Seven. A.M.

It was late, much later than Aki had realized, and he was in no shape to get any more work done in those wee hours of the morning. No one would be back at the lab until Monday, which meant Aki would have the run (canter?) of the place until then, giving him ample time to learn how to control his unfamiliar lower half and to perhaps reverse engineer a means of recreating his results for the art collector.

For now, though, Aki wanted to sleep. From the floor, Aki managed to lift himself onto his hooves, uneasy as he was, first by raising his rump and hind legs to use them for some stability as he extended his forelegs one at a time. He was far from graceful as he felt his four legs wobble beneath him, and so he hobbled clumsily to his private office, propping himself up against a wall the whole way there. It didn’t occur to Aki until he arrived at his office that he wouldn’t be able to sleep on his office sofa anymore as he’d initially intended. What position were centaurs supposed to sleep in, anyway?! Before too long, though, Aki had managed to lower himself back onto the ground with his four legs folded comfortably against his equine belly. Yawning, Aki stretched his arms and his upper back before leaning his naked torso against one of the armrests of his sofa, resting his chin in his crossed arms.

“Computer!” said Aki, finally closing his eyes after this long, strange night, “…Lights off, please.”