Sylph Chapter 11

Sylph in “Metal Fatigue” with thanks, once again, to The Mole for giving me the inspiration for the title
by: stmercy2020
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/b… or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

{sss…click}

{sss…click}

{BZT! BZT! BZT!}

{puzhweeee-}

{vnn…}

“Miao?”

“Oh, no.  Fatty!”

{Spak!...Krnch!}

“Uh oh…”

{Grab! brnk!}

{vnn—squeee!}

{pfp! pfp! pfp!}

{frrrrip!}

{BAM!}

{sksh…psss!}

“Oh boy,” Sylph groaned apprehensively.  Held in either hand were the remains of a very expensive piece of hydraulic machinery.  A shrill alarm whistled, warning the laboratory’s occupants of a pressurization failure, and a large black-and-brown tabby hopped down from the broken safe box and scurried under the metal countertop.

Dr. Markolis rushed in from his office.  “Oh no,” he moaned, clutching his hair in dismay, “Sylph- what happened?!”

“Um, well,” Sylph equivocated, “LaFayette apparently curled up in the safe box just before the experiment started- I swear I looked before I sealed the box, but he must’ve jumped up in the instant my back was turned.

“I guess the sound of the ‘experiment-in-progress’ alarm woke him up, and that’s when he complained because of all the noise and the increasing pressure.

“Anyway, I heard him meow and I went to hit the emergency cut-off, but the whole thing kind of just…well…”  Dr. Markolis looked at the mangled red-and-yellow plastic box.  It looked as if someone had laid it on a hard surface and then pounded it with a sledgehammer.  He rubbed his temple, knowing there was still more to come.

“Uh, there was a malfunction- the thing didn’t stop even though I mashed the button- so I grabbed the arms of the press and pulled it back apart.”

Dr. Markolis looked first at the machinery in Sylph’s hands.  Her fingers had pressed deeply into the outer shell of the hydraulic press.  The short sleeves of her enormous blouse had torn apart at the seams, the enormous pressure exerted by her expanding biceps and triceps more than enough to burst the stitching, and the tear had continued along the tops of her shoulders until the only thing still holding her blouse on her was the terribly overstressed collar.

What was more impressive, though, was that Sylph had, apparently, gripped the shell hard enough to actually take ahold of the thick, steel rod that actually exerted the pressure to the sides of the safebox.  She had pulled on it so hard that the rods, incapable of overcoming the progressive locks intended to prevent the moving walls from firing back when the explosive bolts finally went, had stretched and snapped in her hands and the sudden recoil of the bar had ripped open a gap in the mechanism causing the hydraulic fluid to spray out under pressure.

The net effect was one of massive entropy loosed upon Dr. Markolis’s otherwise well-ordered laboratory.  Dr. Markolis sighed and pushed his spectacles back against the bridge of his nose and stared at his feet.  Sylph had worked for him for less than a week.  She was kindly and good-natured and, despite her enormous bulk, competent and reasonably intelligent.  Certainly, she never needed to have physical tasks explained to her more than once, her superbly trained physique more than capable of any objective she set it to.  Yet she seemed to invite accidents, and they were almost always ridiculously expensive.  The broken machinery she currently held in her hand, for example, had cost the university more than a new tour bus.  It was certain that she wouldn’t be able to pay for the machine, nor would her insurance.

Finally, he looked up at her again.  “Sylph,” he said quietly, “I know you mean well, but…”

Sylph knew what was coming and her shoulders slumped.  Dr. Markolis hurried on.  “I have to fire you, Sylph.  I have no choice- this lab cannot afford to keep you on board; the discreet costs of the accidents is bad enough, but our insurance costs are going to triple…

“I will, of course, give you a very good recommendation should you need it.”

Sylph took a deep breath and straightened her back.  She swallowed and considered protesting, but she knew the doctor was right.  After what seemed ages, she finally said, “It’s okay, Doctor.  I appreciate you trying for as long as you did.”  Gathering up her things, Sylph walked quickly and decisively to the door.

“Miao?” muttered LaFayette- Fatty- from his hiding place, and Sylph stopped to squat down.  The immensely obese lab cat waddled over to her and nuzzled her with his heavy, wedge-shaped head.  Sylph stroked the purring bundle of feline affection absently for a few moments before getting up and exiting the building.

Sylph wandered dejectedly around Central Park, not paying a great deal of attention to her surroundings.  The sky overhead was almost entirely clear, just a couple of fluffy white clouds scudding about, and the air was warm without being oppressive.  She bought a hot dog from a corner vendor, but found that she really had no appetite for it and left most of it uneaten.

She had had trouble with her size before, of course- she no longer tipped scales, she positively crushed them.  She hadn’t been accurately weighed in years, but she had reason to believe that she actually weighed over fifteen hundred pounds.  Given her mass and her strength, it was hardly a surprise that, in moments of distraction, she frequently broke- destroyed- things around her.  What was amazing was that she managed to not break more.

This was, however, Sylph’s first experience with being fired.  It just seemed so unfair!  If the safety button hadn’t failed… but of course, that wasn’t entirely true.  She had mashed the safety button beyond recognition, and that was probably a terminable offence in and of itself.  The fact that the safety had failed to cut in was a moot point.

“Sylph!  Hey, Sylph!” came a voice from behind her.  Wade had been Sylph’s friend since she had first come to NYU.  He had been the first student to show her around the campus, to introduce her to her professors, and to be just generally accepting of the exceptionally large girl.  She turned to see his boyish face approaching, his sandy-blonde hair bobbing as he jogged to catch up with her.  She paused and waited for him.

“Hey, Wade,” she greeted him as he approached, “what’s up?”

“Doc Markolis said you’d headed this way,” Wade began.  Sylph looked glumly at her feet.  “Hey- it’s okay.  So you weren’t cut out to work in a lab with a whole bunch of delicate and pricey equipment.  It’s not the end of the world.”

Sylph shrugged noncommittally.

Wade walked with her in silence for a bit, giving her time and space.  After a while she grimaced and spoke.  “It’s not like I was really expecting it to be a lifetime job, but I thought I’d be able to handle it for at least a few weeks…”

Wade nodded sympathetically.  “It’s not like Dr. Markolis doesn’t like you, Sylph, but I guess you can kind of see his point.”

She nodded.

“Anyway,” Wade went on after a short pause, “I came down originally because a friend of mine over at Boglyn called me about your application and wanted to know if you were still available…”

Sylph scrutinized Wade’s boyish, innocent countenance.  “Well, I guess I’m available now,” she said, raising an eyebrow.  Wade grinned, flashing his white teeth and dimples at her.  He was so unconsciously charming that he occasionally took her breath away.

“Great!  Well, if you’re free, why don’t you join me and we can go meet with Jess and see about getting you set up.  And then I can take you out for a celebratory dinner, right?”

Sylph felt herself smiling despite herself.  “If you really want to- fair warning, though, I eat a lot!”

Wade laughed and began leading her out of the park towards The Met.  It was only a short hike down 82nd street to where Boglyn was in the process of setting up for a new and rather complicated project.  One of New York’s most prosperous families, the Bergensteins, had purchased a brownstone apartment building on the west side of Manhattan.  They had also purchased an empty lot on 82nd street.  Their goal was to completely reconstruct the building in loving detail on their new lot, maintaining the original feeling and atmosphere of the building, but transforming it into a dwelling for one (extremely wealthy) family.  Compounding the difficulty of this project was the fact that the new site was situated amongst buildings deemed to be of great historical significance, thus rendering many traditional methods of construction unusable.

Walking up to the site, a thick-set man spotted them and waved them over.  “Hi Wade,” he greeted them jovially, “and this must be Sylph.”  He thrust out his arm and Sylph clasped hands with him and shook.

“It’s good to meet you, finally,” he continued.  “I’ve heard a lot about you from folks I know.”  Sylph blushed nervously.

“Um, thanks, I think,” she managed.  “It’s good to meet you, too, Mr…?”

“I’m sorry,” he grinned.  “I’m Jesse Boglyn, but nobody ever calls me Mister.  You start talking to Mr. Boglyn and I’m gonna look around for my gramps.”

“Don’t let him fool you,” Wade snorted, “Jess’s one of the richest men on the Eastern seaboard.  Boglyn’s got a major share of most of the new construction and renovation going on in most of the major cities across the nation and even some international trade.”

Jesse grimaced.  “Heh.  My gramps is rich- I, on the other hand, may be destined for abject poverty if I can’t figure out a way to carry this job off successfully.  Honestly, this job looked so damned good on paper, but the more I try to put it together in reality, the more of a logistical nightmare it becomes.”

Sylph cocked her head curiously.  “What’s the sticking point?” she inquired.

“A few things,” Jesse admitted.  “We made a bid assuming we’d be able to use mostly traditional construction techniques.  Unfortunately, a combination of the need to preserve the surroundings and the actual substructure of the island in this area is going to make it impossible for us to use most of our heavy equipment.  To an extent we can work around those difficulties, but only by jacking up the price rather significantly.

“Additionally, we need to redesign the interior of the building.  Originally I had an architect lined up who was willing to do the job for a reasonably fee, but when he discovered who the actual clients were, he decided that he could charge rather more- way, way more than I’m authorized to spend on an architect, in any case.

“Finally, I’ve got some concern about how we’re going to be forced to work without the use of heavy equipment- simply put, the work conditions become unreasonably hazardous and I’m not willing to risk my workers without reasonable surety that I can keep them well-insulated from the sort of dangers that abound when we’re forced to work with inadequate tools.”

Wade didn’t even glance at Sylph before he laid a hand on Jesse’s shoulder.  “Jess, I have with me the answer to all your problems,” he said with a wolfish smile.

Sylph looked speculatively at the bare lot.  “I did do some architectural design before I was accepted at NYU,” she admitted, “I was pretty good, but I don’t know that I’m good enough to make a bid for this project.”

“Well, if you think you have some ideas and you can work into the building footprint and the city water, waste, and power grid- well, right now we don’t have anyone making a reasonable proposal, so I’d be happy to see what you can come up with,” Jesse offered.  “Wade’s mentioned that you’re pretty gifted- you’ve got a good eye, he says, and that’s rare praise from him.  Given that you aren’t actually a professional, I can’t offer you professional rates, but what if I offered you, say, sixty dollars an hour for a week’s labor and see where that gets us?”

Sylph gulped.  That was four times what she had been making working for Dr. Markolis.  “Um, sure,” she stammered gratefully.

“That still doesn’t solve my other problems, though,” Jesse grumbled.  “I mean, one of the most taxing problems is going to be stabilizing the upper floors on the main support column.  The job can be completed in a single day with sufficient manpower, but without the use of a heavy crane, the whole thing is just too dangerous.”

“Um,” Sylph began tentatively, “I might actually be able to help with that, too.”

Jesse just looked at her and Wade coughed lightly into his hand.  “Seriously- if we can rig a decent pulley system, I think I can probably hold your central column stable.  It’d be boring and probably pretty difficult, but, well, I’m pretty strong.”

Wade’s coughing fit seemed to be intensifying until Jesse reached over and punched him on the arm.  “Cut it out, doofus,” he growled.  “Look, Sylph, I can see that you’re strong- Hell, you’re easily bigger than any three men I have working for me put together- but we’re talking about tons- that’s multiple, as in more than one- of weight and an extremely awkward angle even with the aid of multiple block-and-tackles.  I just don’t see it.”

Sylph smiled shyly.  “I think I can do it, Jesse.  Seriously.  I’m stronger than I look.”

Wade nodded.  “Jess, I saw her do a one-arm shoulder press with something like three tons loaded on the bar the first week she was here.  If she says she can do it, I’d at least give her the benefit of the doubt.  After all, what can it hurt?”

Jesse considered for a few minutes.  “A friend of mine mentioned an armwrestling contest at Mike’s Place a couple weeks ago.  Seems a very large young woman defeated the reigning champion, a guy I know goes by the name of Stack- you know anything about that?”

Wade looked mystified, but Sylph nodded.  “Yeah- that was me.  He was refusing to get off the floor so that people could dance unless someone beat him armwrestling.  So I did.”

She said it so matter-of-factly that Jesse knew it was true.  He laughed.  “God, how I wish I’d been there to see that.  Stack’s something of a freak- no  offense- and it would’ve been great to see him put in his place.

“All right.  Well, we can give it a try, if you want.  I can’t lose on this proposition, in any case- if you can’t do it, you let me know and we’ll see if we can’t come up with an alternative.  If you can, though- well, that’ll be a thing,” he smiled.

It took several weeks to really get started after that.  First, Sylph and Wade collaborated on the building design- Wade refused to take a percentage of her fee, as Sylph had suggested, and instead negotiated with Jesse for a separate fee- and quickly came up with a design that was both aesthetically pleasing and, significantly, possible within the necessary budget constraints.

Boglyn began gathering supplies and got started on the initial groundbreaking soon after, but Sylph wasn’t actually able to come to work right away for on simple reason- no shoes.  There was simply no one in Manhattan who stocked work boots for a girl built like Sylph, with relatively dainty feet that grew into titanic pillars at the calves, and Jesse wouldn’t allow her on the worksite without reinforced work boots.  Being superhumanly strong wasn’t any insurance against infection, after all, he pointed out.  Another of Sylph’s college friends, Bekka, came up with the solution to that- a company in her old stomping grounds of California, Nativearth, made custom boots and leather footwear, and Bekka was a long-time customer and able to talk them into providing Sylph with a significant discount.  Of course the fact that Sylph was also purchasing several other items from them helped quite a bit, as well- a suede workbelt with straps and pockets for all the various tools she was likely to need, a buffalo-hide vest, and a new pair of ocotillo sandals.  In all, she had spent nearly a third of her first paycheck on items purchased from them…

Sylph had been working onsite for several days now, and received mixed reactions from the other construction workers.  For one thing, the other workers, almost entirely male, suffered a blow to their egos seeing this young girl so easily handling physical tasks that often required two or three of them to complete.  Beyond that, she didn’t have any of the sense of pacing that long-time workers developed.  She also lacked many of the more technical skills that professional construction workers develop through months and years of labor, and they weren’t skills that she could fake despite her enthusiasm and brute power.  On the other hand, no one could deny that she was a quick learner or that she was eager on the job- occasionally too eager, as once when she bent an I-beam to fit instead of cutting and welding it, thus weakening the beam and rendering it useless.  She was also modest and friendly, more than willing to ask for advice and good-natured enough to withstand the ribbing that some of the older, more crusty workers gave her as a matter of course.

They’d finally laid the new foundation and arranged the framework of the outer building.  Sylph’s design for the house had taken into consideration that she was going to be an integral part of the building process- she hadn’t been thinking of it in terms of job security, although it certainly gave her that- and called for a kind of modular construction.  Each of the individual floors- all four stories- were significantly reinforced to allow her massive bulk to move freely without causing collapse, even when she was loaded down (as she often would be) with several tons of materiel.  Her design had done away with a central support pillar, transferring the role to several walls and arches throughout building instead.

Ironically, the thing that finally cemented Sylph’s place as an accepted part of the workforce happened on one of her days off.  After having lunch at The Met with Wade and Kalida, the three of them decided to visit the worksite and see how things were progressing.  Jesse was, naturally, on-site and speaking with one of the crew chiefs when they walked up.

They waited for him to finish his discussion and the chief to head back to his colleagues, and then Wade walked up and punched him on the arm.  “Hey, Jess- how’s it going?”

“Really well,” Jesse grinned.  “Do you realize we’re actually ahead of schedule and, so far, under budget?  Don’t let me say that too loud, or Murphy’s bound to notice and do something about it.

“We finally got permission from the city to use some of our heavy equipment, too.  Means we’ll be able to keep working on some of the big projects even when the Mighty Mite isn’t here.”

“That’s great!” Wade exclaimed.  “What exactly are you working on today?”

“Main kitchen,” Jesse replied.  “Wanna have a look?”

“Definitely,” Sylph and Kalida chorused.  Sylph’s interest was pretty academic- she just wanted to see what her design actually looked like now that it was becoming reality, but Kalida’s interest was considerably more technical, as the smaller woman enjoyed cooking and was quite proud of her ability in a kitchen.

Jesse smiled again and led them around towards the back of the site.

{THOOM!}

A sudden confusion of voices sounded as the four of them rounded the corner.  A large, yellow forklift had apparently clipped one of the freestanding walls and lost control, the massive vehicle careening out of control towards an unsupported section of floor while the wall itself, a nine by twelve section of reinforced concrete sheathed in a brownstone façade tottered and began to fall away.  Wade and Kalida had both seen Sylph move quickly before- once, when one of NYU’s football team had tried to work out with far more weight than he should have, Sylph had stepped in and caught the bar before he could seriously hurt himself, but nothing they’d seen prepared them for what happened next.

Sylph’s inhuman quadriceps and glutes launched her almost too quickly for the eye to follow, her massive workout shorts gluing themselves to her body in a fraction of a second.  Reaching out with her left hand, Sylph grabbed onto the rear grill of the swerving vehicle.  Her forearm seemed to almost double in size as she punched her fingers through the tough metal, reaching deep inside to get a grip on the frame.  At the same time, she surged forward against the pull of the vehicle to get a crushing grip on the teetering wall, just barely managing to hook her hand through one of the as-yet unfilled windows so that she was straining to hold it upright with just that arm alone.

For an instant, the gigantic teenager’s momentum was actually enough to reverse the motion of the out-of-control forklift, but a moment later the physics of the situation reversed the pull and the nearly eight-ton vehicle started dragging Sylph back towards the fragile flooring section it had originally been steering towards.  The massive weight of the forklift pulled in one direction while nearly eleven tons of concrete and steel pulled in nearly the opposite direction.  Sylph’s arms snapped out to her sides, ripped to full extension by the titanic forces rendered against them.

Her lats exploded with power, her back eclipsing anything that Jesse or even Wade or Kalida had imagined possible.  Blood pulsed through her straining muscles, making the veins stand out like garden hoses against the impossibly tough muscle bellies of her deltoids and triceps.  As she stood there, resisting the combined tearing power of the wall and the machine, Jesse suddenly came to life.

“Jesus!  Get clear of that wall, people.  Move!”  He started running to drag the workers who were moving too slowly clear of the wall, Wade trailing only a step behind him.  At the same time, Kalida, eyes wide, sprang atop the forklift to help the driver get clear.  Landing on the cabin, she saw that he had apparently been thrown forward into the instrument panel before Sylph had managed to bring the forklift to a halt.  Although it hadn’t been going terribly quickly, his forehead had a noticeable gash in it and he seemed to be only barely conscious.  Kalida quickly unclipped his harness and threw the broad-backed man across her shoulder.

Sylph screamed, feeling the pain as her shoulders began to separate, her ribcage expanding more than it was ever intended to.  Tears streamed down her face, her neck and traps stretched beyond their limit.  Her blouse, made tight by her expanding lats, finally gave up and disintegrated, neither seams nor fabric capable of surviving the onslaught of her growing torso.  Even her handmade bra split down the sides, the leather thongs she used to tie it together snapping like kite-string.

“Hold on, Sylph,” Wade yelled encouragingly as he pulled the last worker clear.  Jesse was already on his way to the forklift to help Kalida down with her load.  Kalida dropped the semi-conscious construction worker into his boss’s arms and turned back to the instrument panel.  She had never seen anything like it before, but her quick eyes settled on the key.  She reached over and turned the key until the engine sputtered and died, then jumped clear.

With the engine no longer exerting pressure against her, Sylph felt the wall beginning to pull her back the other way.  With a final gasp, Sylph released her grip on the wall and it crashed to the ground with a deafening boom and an immense cloud of dust.  Sylph sank to her knees.

“Oh my God,” Jesse murmured.

“Are you okay, Sylph?” Kalida asked, immediately going to her friend while Wade tended to the injured construction worker.

Sylph looked up at her from her tear-streaked face and managed a weak smile.  “I think I may have dislocated my shoulders,” she said quietly, “and I think I ruined another perfectly good outfit.”