Karen smiled when she received a personal invitation to view one of the Resort’s latest technological breakthroughs. She
thought the Resort’s management was finally going to make her the full time host of the Resort subsidized Insidiously
Perilous live-stream pay-per-view web-cast, a sensationally popular show she’d been guest hosting since the show’s original
host, Daphne Danger suffered a brutally horrific accident several months earlier.
Arriving at the Resort’s renowned development lab, she’d toured the new research facility with several of the Resort’s board
of directors. While she already knew that the latest generation of the Resort’s regeneration systems employed some type of
early nanotech, apparently the researchers had recently made another astonishing breakthrough, the implications of which Karen
only vaguely understood.
As the tour concluded with an intimate cocktail party in the project’s control room, Karen assumed she was destined to spend
the night entertaining one of the Resort’s incredibly wealthy board members, in what she hoped would be a long night of pleasure
and torturously unspeakable torment. Lost in thought, as she imagined the cruel delights that night might hold, Karen was
surprised when the producer of her show, Insidiously Perilous, came through the crowd, and pausing to kiss her cheek, handed her
a glass of her favorite Pinot Noir before guiding her to the front of the room.
Turning to the small crowd, the producer of Insidiously Perilous, smiled as his audience grew quiet, “Thank you honored guests
for being here tonight, I’d like to make a toast to the Resort’s latest astonishing research breakthrough as well as thank Karen,
the guest host of our incredibly popular show, Insidiously Perilous, for stepping up and keeping the show alive after Daphne’s
horrific accident.”
Turning to Karen, he raised his glass, “To you Karen, for stepping in and keeping the dream that’s Insidiously Perilous alive.”
Wondering where this unexpected night was heading, Karen took a sip from her wine glass. As a highly sought-after Resort companion,
she rarely experienced being the center of attention, unless she was within one of the Resort’s well-appointed torture chambers. Taking
another sip of wine Karen could feel her cheeks blushing with all the unexpected attention.
Smiling darkly the show’s producer watched Karen finishing the last of her wine, “Of course, with Daphne ready to resume her duties as
the host of Insidiously Perilous, the recent nanotech breakthrough pioneered in this very lab have provided us with a rather unique way
of disposing of the show’s temporary, but inconveniently popular, guest host Karen.”
Suddenly overcome by feeling of light headedness Karen struggled to ask, “Disposing of me?”
Watching as the skin of Karen’s extremities started to change color, “A self-replicating and programmable nanotech breakthrough, one
keyed to the DNA of a single individual victim. When introduced into its intended victim’s body, in tonight’s demonstration, mixed into
Karen’s glass of wine. The rapidly reproducing nanotech quickly begins to convert their victim’s body, and along with any inanimate
objects in direct contact, into almost any desired material, in Karen’s case into marble, while at the same time they compel their victim’s
body to strike any pre-programmed pose.”
Suddenly realizing she could no longer feel her fingers Karen glanced down, her eyes going wide in horror as she stared at the skin of her
hand's turning grey, the color spreading quickly upward into her arms as she watched. Already finding becoming harder to breathe, Karen
panicked as felt her body moving of its own volition. Moments later, Karen was gone, replaced instead by her provocatively poised marble statue.