Hi. My name's Chris Williams. I've always been a pretty nerdy kid, and it shows. I'm pale, skinny and on the nerdy side, with chunky glasses that obscure a good portion of my face. School was always pretty hellish - the jocks would pick on me, cramming me into my locker, shoving me in the corridors and of course girls weren't interested in me at all. I had the smarts alright, being a regular straight-A student, but that didn't seem to carry much weight, at least where I was.
Anyway, flash forward a few years and I've just turned 20, and am studying for my bachelor's degree in biochemistry. My parents had wanted me to become a doctor, but I just didn't have the people skills and didn't feel cut out for it, so it seemed like the next best thing. The girls still weren't interested and I hadn't filled out much, if at all. I was my regular old dorky self and just kind of kept my head down.
There was one particular girl, Suzie Jones who was the object of my fantasies. She was sweet and kind, but had one of those knockout cheerleader bodies with a bubble butt and large breasts that strained her shirts, alongside beautiful golden hair that trailed down her back. We exchanged pleasantries occasionally but she was dating Jason Thomas, one of the quarterbacks on our college football team and he was one of the jocks that made my life miserable. Ah well.
I was taking a lot of extra credit classes, and was enrolled in a research program which gave me free access to the human biochem lab. I loved being in there and quickly got to know the layout and became used to performing my own experiments. Because I wasn't spending time either with girls or going out partying, many weekends I'd simply spend in there reading and planning my next study, getting more and more competent in my understanding of human gene interactions.
Here's where things get kind of interesting. I was really captivated by a particular genetic structure that was really hard to pin down in the scientific literature. It was a short section of DNA that reputedly had existed in several prominent figures throughout history, and was associated with extreme masculinity and virility - Genghis Khan was the guy most often speculated to have been the original possessor of the gene, referred to in one study as the Alpha gene, because of the benefits it conferred. However, the gene was dormant in 99.9% of people that had it, as it required another protein to become active, and the corresponding activator gene had been lost through human history.
Which is where my research comes in. It would be the breakthrough of the century, perhaps even the millennium if I could successfully work out the correct folded structure for this protein, and artificially synthesise it. Of course, I couldn't tell anyone what I was doing, which made it extremely difficult to progress with the research. Another year went by, and I had scraped together enough money through working tedious data entry jobs and scholarship funds to have my own DNA sequenced, on the off chance that I had some residual form of the genetic structure that might be close enough to test with.
Which brings me to today. On the desk in front of me, still sealed, were the results of the sequencing process on a flash drive. With trembling hands, I booted my laptop, opened the files and audibly gasped, Through some miracle stroke of luck, I had the exact sequence that was described in the scant few papers I had been able to find, completely identical. I began to get excited. I did have a preliminary form of the activator protein in synthesis at this moment, although I knew that the coding sequence could still be enormously improved.
I waited a few more hours for the purification process to finish, and went to collect the sample. Alpha-X was the name I had tentatively given to the protein, to go along with existing name. My scientific curiosity was insatiable, and I NEEDED to know what would happen. I prepared my intravenous delivery device, which would slowly deliver Alpha-X into my bloodstream at a controlled rate, held it to my arm with quaking fingers, and triggered the applicator.
It stung like a motherfucker, let me tell you that. I was frightened for a moment that I might have an immune response to the foreign protein, but had taken steps to prevent the chances of this happening and thankfully nothing happened during the next hour that I stayed at the lab to clean up all evidence of my work. I took the sequence drive home with me and stored all my protocols on the same drive, ensuring that nobody would be able to tell what I had been up to.
I then had the worst night's sleep of my life. The entire evening was consumed by painful fits and cramps, which continued into the early hours of the morning. I chalked it up to some seasonal bug as it went away the next day, and I kept heading to school as per usual. Unfortunately the lab was closed for renovation for a few weeks, but I constantly had thoughts of the Alpha-X circling my mind as I waited to see what the effects would be.
I didn't have to wait long. One morning, about a week after the initial injection, I got out of bed and looked at myself in the full-length mirror attached to my closet, and was thoroughly taken aback. While there were no incredibly drastic changes, I noticed that abs were starting to appear on my previously skinny stomach, and my muscles in general had a more toned look to them. My jawline was slightly straighter, and generally I just looked more fit. Not muscular by any means, but like an amateur athlete as opposed to the stick-insect I had resembled just seven days before.
This knowledge changed everything. I began to feel slightly more confident about my body, and became a little more gregarious. Girls seemed happier to talk to me now, and I felt my eyesight gradually become a bit better, to the point where I didn't even need to wear my glasses all the time. As the days went by, the effects of the alpha gene became even more pronounced. Just after the three week mark, I measured myself and I was now an even 6'2. I had always been tall, but skinny to the point where it was not an attractive feature.