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Archive name: shrink.txt (MF, nc, sci-fi)
Authors name: Marcia R. Hooper (marciar26@aol.com)
Story title : Girl Who Came Shrink Wrapped, The

--------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003. As the author, I claim all rights under 
international copyright laws. This work is not intended 
for sale, but please feel free to post this story to 
other archives or newsgroups, keeping the header and text 
intact. Any commercial use of this work is expressly 
forbidden without the written permission of the author. 
--------------------------------------------------------

The Girl Who Came Shrink Wrapped (MF, nc, sci-fi)
by Marcia R. Hooper (marciar26@aol.com)

***

Joanna gets a shot in the arm. Only it's not the shot in 
the arm she wants. Instead, her fiendish boss has just 
injected Joanna with a "shrinx" serum that will send her 
unwillingly into the atoms of another, smaller universe. 
Based upon a story written back in the 30's, this story 
is mostly for sci-fi buffs. (It doesn't have as much sex 
as my other stories, sorry.)

***

This is a work of fiction and is not meant to portray any 
person living or dead, nor any known situation. It is 
meant for adults only and is not to be read by person's 
under the age of 18, or the legal age in the 
county/state/country in which the reader resides. 

If you would like a Microsoft Word or WordPerfect version 
of this story (a much easier read), please contact me at 
MarciaR26@aol.com. You can also visit my website at 
http://hometown.aol.com/marciar26/ to read the rest of my 
stories. If that doesn't work, which it doesn't half the 
time, try http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/marciar26/myhomepage/

Note: This story is adapted from the short story, "He Who 
Shrank" by Henry Hasse. It was originally published in 
the August, 1936 issue of Amazing Stories. About two 
months ago, my husband handed me a book of short stories 
called: Before the Golden Age, by Isaac Asimov and dared 
me to try and make any of them modern enough to read. I 
laughed, thinking who would ever want to read something 
written 67-68 years ago, and science fiction to boot. I 
was wrong. Three of the stories I really liked: "The 
Accursed Galaxy" and "Devolution" by Edmond Hamilton, and 
"He Who Shrank" by Henry Hasse. I rewrote all three.

This story has only a smidgen of sex, so it fits into 
Kristen's Collection guidelines, but just barely. Big 
Bang Theory has quite a lot, however, and River of 
Screams has some. I hope you enjoy them also.

***

THE GIRL WHO CAME SHRINK WRAPPED
by Marcia R. Hooper (MarciaR26@aol.com)

Adapted from the short story:
HE WHO SHRANK
by Henry Hasse
First Published in the August, 1936 
issue of Amazing Stories


It was a Friday night and I was late. 

The new boy I was dating, Todd, had originally set the 
time to pick me up at 7:00 p.m. and I had pushed that 
back to eight. We had reservations at a steak house at 
9:00 p.m. I didn't want to loose them. I didn't want to 
loose Todd. So, obviously, when I heard the Professor had 
asked me to come up to his office at seven-oh-five to see 
him, I was a little bit miffed.

"You wanted to see me, Professor?"

He stood at the large curved windows, looking out at the 
sky. Being December, it was pitch dark. "Come in, 
Joanna," he said. That put me on guard. Normally I was 
lucky to rate a Ms. Hesse, from the professor and most of 
the time it was just Hesse. 

Without preface, he announced: "They say I'm the greatest 
scientist of my time."

I had been his grad student for almost two years, and was 
accustomed to his pomposity. I knew when not to speak.

"A year and half year ago, we discovered the method for 
isolating and coding the protein shells for the world's 
most prevalent virus." He was talking about the common 
cold. "Last year, we discovered the anti-shedding toxin 
that made scriptase regeneration possible." Cloning, he 
meant. He finally turned around to face me. A peculiar 
glow lurked in his eyes. 

"Either of these discoveries would have assured us a 
Nobel Prize," he said. "Yet as great as they were, they 
were only incidental discoveries in our pursuit of the 
really grand prize!"

I wondered why he was including me in his "we." I had no 
more to do with those discoveries than I did with 
producing the nightly news.

"For these things they call me great!" he scoffed. "The 
fools. They think I do it for them? I care as much about 
the human race or what happens to it as I do about that 
desk." He pointed at his piled-high and generally 
unmanageable desktop, then marched to a locked cabinet 
and dialed a combination. 

I had often wondered what he kept in there--some said it 
was classified government reports--but when he swung the 
door open, what I saw was the usual array of bottles and 
test-tubes and vials. One of these vials he lifted 
gingerly from a rack.

"And this," he almost whispered, holding the tube aloft, 
"is the culmination of that work."

What I saw in the vial made me take a step backwards. It 
was a pale green liquid, scintillating eerily under the 
fluorescent lights. It seemed to swirl. It seemed alive.

"Thirty years," he said. "Thirty years of ceaseless 
experimentation, endowment battles, and lying to the 
press. Thirty years of long nights and weekends and three 
fizzled marriages. Now, here in my hand--success!"

Professor Sturgeon's manner, the weird glow in his eyes, 
the submerged animosity that seemed at every instant 
about to leap out of his skin, all served to worry me 
deeply. It must have been in my eyes, for he laughed.

"I'm not going to attack you, Joanna!"

I laughed as well, but I hardly felt reassured. "Sorry, 
Professor," I said. 

He gave me a somber grin. "It's all right. I just want 
you to share in it," he said. "To see for yourself."

I had no idea that he meant exactly what he said--
literally.

Carefully replacing the vial in the rack, the professor 
walked back to the curved windows. He gestured toward the 
night sky. "Look, at that," he said. 

"Billions of miles of nothing. Trillions of billions of 
miles. The fools dream of someday traveling out there to 
the stars. They think they'll learn the secret of the 
universe. They're blind, Joanna. They can't even figure 
out how to make a propulsion system to get out to the 
closest planets, much less the stars. I could solve the 
problem in a month. I could, but I won't. Let them waste 
their time. Let them waste our hard earned tax dollars. 
Think I care about them?"

I looked at my watch. I was alarmed at the time. I 
wondered what the hell was going on. 

"Suppose they do solve the problem?" he asked. "Suppose 
they get out to their other little worlds in their hollow 
little space ships, travel at the speed of light for 
their entire lifetime, and then land on a paltry little 
planet around some third rate sun... and what then? Claim 
that, 'We now realize as never before the truly 
staggering immensity of space. It is the grandest 
structure imaginable, the universe.' Only I know they're 
wrong. The farthest star we can see by telescope is only 
the tiniest distance to the edge of the universe. The 
known universe. They might as well jaunt down to the 
local McDonald's for all the good it would do them."

"But, Professor," I objected, "If you don't explore-"

"Wait!" He said. "I've also long desired to fathom the 
universe, Hesse! To determine what it is, the manner and 
the purpose of its creation. But have you ever stopped to 
wonder just what the universe is? For thirty years I've 
hammered away at that question. Unknowingly, Hesse, you 
helped me discover the key."

"I did?"

He grinned, cattily. 'The answer is in that vial over 
there and you'll be the first to share the secret."

Incredulous, I stared at the green swirling liquid. I had 
a hand in that?

"You know, Joanna," he said. "There was a time when I 
looked to the stars for the answer myself. I built my own 
telescope, explored all the start charts, poured over the 
calculations, spent years staying up nights. Then I got 
into physics. And then into quantum mechanics. And guess 
what, Joanna? I discovered that no one on earth, not even 
myself, had a clue. No one even suspected the truth. All 
these years of particle theory, unified field, weak and 
strong atomic force--it's all bunk."

I wanted to laugh. Had he lost his mind? Was he getting 
ready to pop a surprise birthday party on me, with 
hundreds of guests? 

I asked, "It is?"

"Yes," he said. "It is. Last month, I proved conclusively 
to myself what had hitherto been only a theory. I know 
now without a doubt that this planet of ours, and the 
other planets revolving about the sun, are the electron 
system of an atom, and that the sun is the nucleus. One 
nucleus among billions of others. Billions and billions 
of others with their own system of electron planets, each 
system an atom in a molecular swarm." 

"You're nuts," I said, unthinkingly. "Certifiably nuts."

"And all these billions of systems," he continued, 
ignoring my outbreak, "taken together in one group, form 
our little galaxy. A galaxy among countless others, 
spread throughout space. All with tremendous stretches of 
space between them, Hesse. Molecular space! The molecular 
space of some exotic--or entirely mundane element. An 
element like gold, or iron or silver... even lead. 
Perhaps something as minute as a drop of water, or a wisp 
of smoke, or--good God!--an eyelash of some living 
creature!"

I could not speak. My head was spinning. Arguably, the 
most famous scientist on earth--even if he did say so 
himself--and he had completely flipped his lid. 

"Professor," I managed to choke out. "I have to go."

"Carry it a step further," he said. "Maybe that ultra-
world is itself just an electron, whirling around the 
nucleus of an atom of someone's fork. Or the spoke of a 
wheel on some little sister's bike. Perhaps the patiently 
waiting pre-critical mass of plutonium in somebody's 
bomb--"

"For God's sake, Professor," I cried. "Stop it!" I felt 
myself close to tears. If Sturgeon really was crazy, what 
about my dissertation? 

"Where would it end?" I demanded. "Would it go on 
forever! And besides," I yelled, trying to control my 
hysteria, "what has all this got to do with that bunch of 
green shit you showed me?"

Scowling, he said, "Just this. Knowing it was useless to 
look to the infinitely large, I turned to the infinitely 
small. What works on the scale of the macrocosmic 
translates to the microscopic as well."

I saw his line of thought. It made me feel even worse. 
His next words left no doubt whatsoever that the 
professor had driven himself nuts. 

"If I couldn't pierce things on the macrocosmic level," 
he said. "then I'd go for the atoms below." He laughed, 
gaily. 

"They're everywhere, you know. In every object I touch 
and in the very air I breathe. But they are so incredibly 
minute. To reach them, I had to find a way to make myself 
just as minute as they are--only smaller! The compound I 
showed you is a quantum resizer. In plain English, what 
it does is to contract the molecules in my body. Once in 
my bloodstream, the substance bathes the individual 
components of my atoms with quantum anti-binding force. 
This discharges the electrons and protons, causing them 
to decrease in size. Since the neutrons have no 
electrical charge, they shrink along with the rest. I 
will soon become the size of an atom, and continue on 
down from there." 

He raised his voice to a hilariously theatrical level. 
"Into infinite smallness!"


TWO

When he had finished speaking I said: "You are totally 
fucking nuts."

He was unperturbed. "I expected you to say that, " he 
replied. "But no, I'm not mad. Just a bit on the elacious 
side. It's only because you're unacquainted with the 
abilities of 'Shrinx.' But I promised, you'd see for 
yourself. And you shall."

"Professor, I'm sorry," I said, "but I really have to 
go." I begin unbuttoning my lab coat.

He went on as though I hadn't spoken:

"There are several reasons why I shouldn't go first. A) 
once you make the trip there can be no coming back. B) 
there could be unexpected side effects that I'll need to 
deal with before following in your footsteps, and C) I 
must first make sure what to expect. You'll be my advance 
guard, so to speak.

Now he really was scaring me.

"I'll keep in contact with you via an ingenious device 
I've perfected myself. I'll explain that to you later. 
Once the 'Shrinx' is introduced into your blood stream, 
you'll begin to resize at a preprogrammed rate. This rate 
should remain consistent no matter how small you get. It 
may alter somewhat with the level of blood pressure and 
your heart-rate, of course, but I'm not sure how much. 
There's only so much computer simulations can do. Anyway, 
I'm sure it will all go according to plan and quite 
without harm."

I was almost to the door. I was past being being scared 
and into the realm of terror. He actually believed this 
stuff. "I'm sorry, Professor, " I said shakily. "I won't 
be back. You'll have to find a replacement for me. I'll 
pick up my--"

Without warning--why didn't I see it coming!--he leaped 
forward, snatching an object off his desk. I let out a 
shriek and fumbled at the door, trying to turn the knob. 
Just as I got it turned and got the door opened, he 
slammed it shut again and rammed me hard up against it. I 
felt a needle plunge deep into my shoulder. I screamed 
but he had a hand over my mouth. Then a wave of vertigo 
swept over me and my vision blurred and the room seemed 
to press in on all sides. Sounds seemed both to amplify 
and slow down. I said the word, "Professor," and it came 
out comically stretched. I turned around and the 
Professor stood leering before me.

"Yes," he said. "I've worked very hard and I am very 
tired. But I'm not tired enough to quit this thing now, 
not when I'm on the verge of the success."

His leer of triumph gave way to an expression of concern.

"I'm sorry it had to come to this," he said, "but I knew 
you would never submit. I really am rather ashamed of 
myself. But what's done is done and in a short time we 
should observe the effects. What's in the vial is for 
myself, which I'll be taking later on."

I was so angry and scared that I began to cry. My 
shoulder throbbed something fierce where he had plunged 
in the needle, and I felt weak in the knees. I didn't 
fear shrinking and didn't believe a word he said, but I 
did fear the shit he had put in me. Was I going to die?

"You bastard," I croaked. The words barely came out. When 
I tried to move the hand I had on my shoulder, it 
wouldn't budge. I was paralyzed!

The Professor seemed surprised as well, and alarmed.

"Paralysis?" he said. "I didn't expect that. But like I 
said: simulations go only so far." He came close and 
peered intently into my eyes. "Lets hope the effect is 
only temporary," he said. Then added: "But you'll likely 
have scratched my eyes out, so call it a blessing. 
Besides," he said, getting an evil look. "I couldn't have 
done this." He raised his hand and put it over my left 
breast. I wanted to die. Then he kissed my neck and began 
to suck it and put his left hand on my ass and began to 
squeeze. I could not do a thing.

"Know how long I've wanted to do this?" He released my 
breast and put his hand up my blouse. "Two years, three 
months, and twenty-four days." As long as I'd been his 
assistant. "You are such a sweet little piece of ass, 
Joanna." 

My mouth still worked to a tiny degree and I made pitiful 
sounds.

"Stop it," he said, almost laughing. "I like my fun."

His fingers found the clasp of my brassiere and released 
it--my bra popped apart. He cupped my left breast in his 
hand. 

"Nice," he said. "If just a bit small." His grin crook 
over teasingly. "34A?"

I could only stare at him with hate. He laughed again. 

"This," he said. "Is really a bonus."

Lifting my blouse above my breasts, he leaned over and 
kissed them both. His attention made my nipples hard, and 
of course, this excited him more. He sucked at them 
noisily. Then he raised the front of my skirt and slid 
his hand down my panties, and I tried to scream.

"Relax," he said. "Just enjoy it."

Enjoy it? I was being raped!

Dropping my panties around my knees, then using his feet 
to spread apart mine, he got me wide enough to insert his 
finger. I felt him inside. I felt him explore. I wanted 
to die. Then he was back to sucking my neck and squeezing 
my bottom and basically rutting me with his finger while 
I stood there and wailed inside my head.

"Enough of this!" he exclaimed, standing back. His face 
was red and his eyes bright and hot. He'd turned from mad 
scientist to mad rapist in a moment. Then stretched his 
neck, making bones pop. I could see his erection. 

"It's already begun," he said. He hurried to his desk. 
"Must get going. Get back on track." Then he stopped and 
looked at me with that awful expression, and I felt the 
warmth and wetness on my neck, the fingers on my breasts, 
and the finger up my vagina. I saw myself on the floor. 
This was a date-rape drug extraordinaire. 

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Later. Later on. Get 
your shit done."

Straightening, he went to his cabinet again and removed 
what I swear to God was an old Sony Walkman. He brought 
out a blue canvas backpack. He came and stood before me 
again. I glared at him for everything I was worth and 
began to laugh. "Two of them," he said, indicating my 
neck. "The best I ever did."

Great... fucking hickeys.

First working the backpack over my shoulders, then 
putting the headphones over my ears, he slipped the 
Walkman into my lab coat's right pocket and hurried back 
to his desk. From under a pile of papers he removed a 
large red box, loaded with dials and displays. He turned 
on a switch and the headphones crackled in my ears. He 
looked my way. My eyes confirmed it. "Good," he said.

Although I hadn't the least idea what he was going to do, 
never for a minute did I believe that I would begin to 
shrink away. Not in a fucking million years. 

As though reading my mind, the Professor turned and faced 
me. He looked me over casually for a moment, then said: 
"It's already begun, Hesse. Yes, I'm quite sure it has. 
Tell me, don't you feel it, Hesse? Don't things look a 
trifle bigger to you, taller?" He grinned. "I forgot the 
paralyzing effect doesn't permit you to answer. But look 
at me, Joanna... don't I seem taller now?"

I looked at him, all right. I wanted to burn in his face, 
I wanted to remember it just this way when I burned him 
at his trial. But then my intensity faltered. Was it my 
imagination, or did this bastard have me under a spell? 
Had he convinced me somehow that he actually was growing 
larger, ever so slightly, even as I looked?

"Ah-ha!" he yelled triumphantly. "You have noticed! I can 
tell it by your eyes. But it's not me who is growing 
taller, Joanna, it's you who are shrinking!"

He came and stood right before me. "You still doubt, 
Hesse, so look. We used to stand practically eye to eye, 
remember? Now I'm fully three inches taller than you."

It was true! I stood five feet seven in my stocking feet, 
and the professor was just slightly taller. Now I looked 
up into his eyes like I looked into Todd, who was six 
feet tall! 

"The 'Shrinx' has not quite reached its maximum effect," 
he said. "When it does, it will remain absolutely 
constant. I couldn't stop it now even if I tried, because 
there's nothing to counteract it with. Now listen 
closely, for there's several things you need to know.

"First, when you become small enough, I'm going to lift 
you up and place you on that table. This block of metal 
here--" I saw it from the corner of my eye "--is 
Rehyllium-80, the densest, non-radioactive substance 
known to man. As you become smaller and smaller, you will 
eventually become small enough to enter an entirely alien 
universe, Hesse, consisting of billions and billions of 
stars... molecules of this Rehyllium block. When you 
first break through, your size in comparison to this new 
universe will be immense. Utterly immense. But as you 
continue to diminish, Hesse, soon you'll be able to 
alight on any one of tens of trillions of planets, one of 
your own very own choosing. And--after alighting there, 
Hesse--you will continue down--always down!"

I thought I would go mad. Already I had become fully a 
foot shorter, and if the paralysis hadn't still had me in 
its grip, I would have torn the Professor apart, limb by 
limb.

Again he read my mind.

"Don't think too harshly of me, Hesse," he said. "You 
should be grateful for this opportunity. You're off on a 
great adventure, into a marvelous new realm. Indeed, I'm 
almost jealous that you'll be first. But with this," he 
indicated the headphones and the box on the desk, "I'll 
keep in contact with you no matter how far you go. Just 
as light is a form of electromagnetic radiation," he 
said, "so is thought. And just as light travels in the 
form of waves, so does thought. The headphones pick up 
your impressions of sight and sound, and transmit them to 
this box. It has the ability to amplify those waves over 
a million times, Hesse, so I can track you for quite some 
time. I'll have another set of my own, once I follow you 
in, so I can continue to monitor your adventures."

I no longer had any doubt about his marvelous "Shrinx." 
It would do everything he claimed. Already, I was down to 
two-thirds of my original size, now maybe four feet tall. 
And still the paralysis held. 

Realizing my anger was counter-productive, I pushed it 
away. Think, dammit! Think! Use your head! What I needed 
was to get away. Ambush the doc somehow, get out of this 
building, and try for help. But if the paralysis didn't 
let me go soon...  Worse, the professor had gone quiet, 
and again had that look in his eye. 

Wait! my mind screamed. If this atomic universe was a 
carbon copy of our, wouldn't I end up in the reaches 
between galaxies--the vast empty reaches! No oxygen to 
breath meant no breathing, and I was panic stricken 
again. 

But the Professor seemed oblivious to my panic, and was 
extracting his penis. 

Oh, God, no! I begged. Please, no! 

Approaching me slowly, he said: "Relax. It'll just take a 
minute." My face was right there at his cock, about three 
feet off the floor, and though only of average size, it 
looked absolutely huge!

"No, Professor," I somehow got out. It was almost 
incoherent, but the paralysis, at least around my mouth, 
was letting up. My mouth, I thought, of course my 
mouth... 

Removing my headphones and putting them around my neck, 
he then tilted back my head and lowered my jaw. It was 
not working well enough yet to close it. Cupping me 
beneath my chin and holding the back of my head, he then 
started to draw me forward. I prepared to receive a cock. 

"Wait a minute," he muttered, suddenly distraught. "What 
the fuck are you doing!"

Releasing me and fumbling himself back inside, I thought 
for a moment he had reconsidered--then I learned the 
truth.

"Damned fool! You're small enough to begin with. You want 
to make it smaller?"

He had only halted because putting it in my mouth would 
have subjected it to the effects of the field. I wanted 
to laugh, but the paralysis would not let me.

Putting the headphones back on my ears, the Professor 
hurried away and made some final preparations. His face 
was red, and he kept cutting me looks from the corners of 
his eyes. I could almost have enjoyed being raped in the 
mouth, if getting raped would have gotten him too. 

When I was two feet tall, the Professor removed my lab 
coat and raised my blouse over my head, then removed my 
brassiere. "A little trophy," he said, putting my brand 
new Victoria's Secret brassiere into his coat pocket. He 
then put my blouse back on (after first kissing my tiny 
little breasts) then put my arms back into my lab coat 
sleeves. He button the lab coat up. Then he picked my 
panties up from my ankles and ran them up my legs, 
snugging them into place. His grin said he had considered 
taking them also. I realized only then that whatever I 
wore, shrunk along with me. Another effect of the serum?

Placing the headphones back on my ears, the professor got 
to his knees and checked the Walkman one last time. "I 
think you're ready," he said.

Everything--the Professor, the tables, the walls--were 
gigantically out of proportion.

Picking my up, the Professor set my on the table amidst a 
clutter of wires and apparatus. He began speaking again, 
and his voice was louder and very deep.

"This is the Rehyllium-80," he said, patting the square 
block of metal, nearly half my height. "Since Rehyllium 
is so intensely dense, it will afford you a comparatively 
dense universe in which to explore. You may not think so 
when you first get there, not with the thousands of 
light-years between stars. But, even though I know no 
more about this universe than you, I strongly advise you 
to stay away from the brightest stars and approach only 
ones that seem comparable to our own. They have the best 
odds of inhabitable planets. Choose your worlds well."

He was so big now he towered above me like a skyscraper. 
It felt like everything in the room, the Professor 
included, loomed. I felt very tiny, indeed. 

"Well, this is good-by," he said. "We won't see each 
other again. Even were I to try, I could never locate the 
same planets you choose, not out of all the trillions and 
trillions there are. Also, because your rate of shrinkage 
is so great--it needs some adjusting-- you won't be able 
to stay on any given world more than a few hours. Perhaps 
this is best. Anyway, good luck."

He picked me up and placed me atop the smooth surface of 
the Rehyllium-80. I judged I must be about four inches 
tall. The paralysis was beginning to break up and I had 
movement in my face and neck. I could finally move my 
hand. I pulled it away from my still aching shoulder and, 
expanding my lungs, shouted out with all my might.

"Professor! Professor, wait!"

He bent over me. My voice must have sounded like the 
squeak of a mouse.

"What about air? How do I live in the empty regions 
between stars?" 

"Don't worry," he answered. His voice was like thunder, 
and I struggled to get my hands up over my ears.

Understanding, he spoke more softly this time. "You'll be 
quite safe," he went on. "In the thirty years I've worked 
on the problem, I wouldn't have overlooked so important a 
point. I will admit it had me stumped for some time. But 
as it turned out, 'Shrinx' solved the problem for me. It 
generates a field outward around the body for about six 
inches. That's why your clothes shrink as well, and also 
the headset. Somehow it captures gas molecules within 
this field and shrinks them at the same rate as you. 
Otherwise--" he gave a short laugh "--you couldn't 
breathe at all. Once you descend to microscopic size, the 
air molecules will be bigger than you."

Helpful information, I thought. Remind me to not inhale 
anything bigger than I can swallow. Then I thought of 
something else I had almost swallowed and--

Cut it out, Joanna! You have more important things to 
consider!

"What about the cold?" I yelled up. "And what do I eat?"

He shook his massive head. He pulled away before speaking 
but I still felt his breath. It swirled all my clothes. 
"I've given you enough food and water for several days. 
It's in the backpack, Joanna. Use it wisely. As far as 
the cold of space, the field radiates a fair amount of 
heat by itself. While you're in your very large state, 
the molecules surrounding your body will insulate you 
well. There's nothing remotely massive enough, save maybe 
a Black Hole--and then only when you've become smaller--
that could bleed them away. But keep your distance from 
anything out of the ordinary, Hesse, Black Holes 
included. Wouldn't do to have you sucked down one of 
those."

No indeedy, I thought--you fucking cock bastard.


THREE

By now, I was barely an inch high. I could move about, 
but my limbs tingled and ached fiercely and felt 
intermittently weak. I sat down and rubbed my calves and 
my feet. Along with my neck and my lower back, they 
seemed to ache the worst. Despite the incredible 
circumstances, what hit me most was how odd it felt 
without my bra. Having my breasts sway back and forth 
under a blouse was something I couldn't remember in the 
last ten years. Then I thought how ridiculously mundane 
this was.

"You are an asshole, Joanna. Get the hell up!"

I got up. 

The Professor appeared more like a mountain now, towering 
thousands of feet into the air; beyond him, seemingly 
miles away, the walls of the room extended to 
unimaginable heights. The ceiling seemed as far away as 
the moon. 

Walking to the edge of the block and peering down, I 
found myself at the top of a cliff. The face of it was 
black and smooth, and absolutely perpendicular. Far below 
extended the vast cluttered plain of the table and 
experiencing a sudden strong vertigo, I stepped back. I 
wouldn't want the Professor's experiment to end so soon. 

Walking back to the center of the block, I sat down again 
and rubbed my calves. They ached something awful. Then I 
underwent a momentary panic as I remembered what always 
cramped my calves--but no, I had just finished my period 
last week. I was safe for another three weeks. This, I 
bet, was something the Professor had never considered. I 
bet he never considered I'd eventually have to pee. 

By now, every movement of the Professor sent air swirling 
around me; I felt light as a feather. He was just an 
indistinguishable blur, looking at me through one of 
those gigantic magnifying glasses, the kind that is 
lighted. I had to shade my eyes. It was becoming hot. 

"Stop it," I yelled, waving him off with my hand. 
Evidently he got it, because the glass pulled away. A 
booming thunder echoed and bounced around the room. He 
may have said, "I'm sorry," but I wasn't sure. 

Well, I'm sorry too, I thought, wondering what made me so 
calm. 

Suddenly, the smooth flat metal surface was no longer so 
smooth and flat. I felt scratches biting into my rear end 
and stood up. I was maybe the size of a pea, more like a 
BB, and everywhere around me, ditches were opening up, 
slowly becoming trenches. They extended in all 
directions. I stood in one now. 

"Jesus," I whispered. "This is it."

I began to loose my cool. "Professor! Professor 
Sturgeon!"

I looked up, but all I could see was fog. I was small 
enough now, that light refracting off the molecules 
sometimes missed my eyes. Or so I guessed. 

Stumbling blindly along the trench, I waved desperately 
up at the fog, aware that he might no longer see me at 
all. I hollered his name. I begged and I pleaded. I began 
to cry. Coming to an intersecting ravine, I turned to my 
left and then to my right, wondering what to do. The 
walls of the ravine were now over my head, and soon I was 
between two towering cliffs. I continued to shrink. 

"Professor Sturgeon!" I screamed. "Professor, where are 
you!"

I began to run and run and ran until I ran out of breath. 
My eyes poured out tears and my lungs bellowed breath in 
and out. I felt dizzy and immensely hot. My fucking side 
ached. Then I looked at a big gouge in the cliff face 
ahead and screamed at the top of my lungs.

"Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Throwing myself around, I fled in the opposite direction. 
It was a mite, an immense enormous beast, exactly as I 
had seen in photos. Only instead of magnified 50,000 
times by a scanning electron micrograph, this mite was a 
horse. 

"Professor!" I screamed. "Heeeeeeeeeelp!"

Turning a bend to my right, I threw back a look and found 
the mite in pursuit. I started screaming again and poured 
on the speed. The thing was blue-white in color and 
almost transparent, with hundreds of ugly spikes rimming 
the body on the lower and upper sides. I saw things 
inside the body--things I didn't like. I could see its 
stomach. 

Rounding another turn, I looked back again and saw that 
the mite had gained. It had a double row of double 
jointed legs on either side of its body that propelled it 
ahead, sometimes bouncing up and off the walls. It was 
right from a nightmare. 

Up one ravine I sped and down another, doubling left and 
then right to shake my pursuer. I no longer felt winded 
or out of breath and the irony of being pursued by a 
fucking mite struck me as hysterical, but I had no time 
to laugh. I ran until I really was out of breath and 
could run no more. Let him take me, I thought. It's got 
to end sometime. I turned around to meet my fate and... 
the mite wasn't there.

"What?" I panted. I looked all around. I looked up the 
walls. The cliff face disappeared into nothingness above 
and I was alone. I was the size of a germ. A germ, for 
Jesus Christ's sake, a germ. I waited there, panting. I 
didn't wait long.

"Fuck you," I whispered as the mite appeared behind me 
again. "You and the horse you rode in on."

Only now the mite was bigger than a horse, more like a 
fucking T-rex. I slowly backed away. "Nice, buggy," I 
whispered. "Nice little friend." A friend who would eat 
me alive. 

Whirling, I fled again, screaming at the top of my lungs. 
I continued to scream, not wanting to hear my pursuer run 
me down. Suddenly tripping over a knife-edged fracture in 
the rock--there were chasms and pits all around me--I 
flew face first through the air, not touching the ground 
and not seeming to need to. Had I shrunk out of gravity's 
grip? Almost. 

Finally coming back to earth, I bounced lightly once, 
then shot back into the air. I kept heading up until 
something sharp grabbed my leg and I was hauled back 
down. Screaming and kicking I prepared to die. 

The thing let me go. 

The thing had bigger, more important things to worry 
about: a two story high blob of gelatinous mass that 
threatened to eat it. 

I backed away, scurrying on my hands and heels like a 
crab, as the two monsters battled it out. I backed until 
I came to a chasm that extended wall to wall. It looked 
bottomless with dark. The mite had extricated itself from 
the gelatinous mess--I realized this mess was a fucking 
germ--and was trundling toward me. It really looked 
pissed. 

Knowing I had nowhere to go, and no time to think about 
it, I simply pulled myself up to the edge, and let go. I 
fell backward into the depth less chasm, silent and 
resigned. My adventure was done.


FOUR

Nothing happened.

I expected to crash into the bottom, if not into oblivion 
itself. But there was no sickening sensation of falling, 
no sensation at all. I seemed to just float.

Opening my eyes, and finding myself in darkness (the 
light at the top of the chasm, seemingly miles above, was 
very faint) I extended my hand and encountered a rough 
surface. I was falling, but at no great speed; I walked 
faster than this.

How long I continued to drift there in that jet black 
darkness, I have no idea. It must have been a few 
minutes, and every minute I grew smaller. I also grew 
less afraid. I hadn't died when I had expected to, and 
this gave me an inner piece.

After a time, I became aware of immense objects all 
around me. They pressed in from every side, and they gave 
off a soft luminescence that helped me cope. Some were no 
larger than myself and others loomed as large as Mt. 
Everest. None of these masses ever approached each other 
or myself; we just drifted slowly in space.

As I continued to shrink, the accompanying objects spread 
out and away from me and disappeared. I realized they 
were molecules of air. I became alone. I became afraid. 
Was the Professor wrong and I was not falling into an 
underlying universe of starlight and matter, but into an 
endless and sightless void? Would I get smashed by a 
speeding electron? But then the ambient light level 
increased--I could suddenly see my hands--and I watched 
as tiny iridescent patches of light appeared and became 
swirling, expanding, individual stretches of milky white. 
They grew in complexity and size, and surrounded me in 
every direction. I saw individual points of light and 
sudden intense flashes that told me what they were.

These were nebulae! Galaxies and clusters of galaxies! 
Galaxies in globular clusters and pinwheel shapes, and 
arranged in random and scattershot order. They came and 
they went and the flashes of light I saw were novae and 
super novae inside... it stole my breath away! 

Growing ever smaller, the nebulae grew larger around me, 
but also more distant apart. One particularly large 
galaxy near my waist became a million dots of light, then 
tens of millions of dots of light, and some of the dots 
were significantly larger than others. They ranged in 
color from intense white to a dullish red or blue. These 
were super giant stars, I knew, what the Professor had 
warned me to avoid.

The general luminosity became intense and suddenly I was 
swept up in one of the spiral arms. The stars and clouds 
of dust swept past me and cascaded around my head and my 
hands and my feet, becoming totally disarrayed. I dared 
not move for fear of knocking them completely out of the 
arm. I also worried they'd get up under my skirt, 
although none evidently did. Then the swarm was past me 
and I was between spiral arms and watching the next arm 
approach. As scared as I was, it was still an incredible 
sight. I wanted to shriek like a teenager going down that 
first incredibly plunge of a roller coaster and then the 
next arm swept in and engulfed me and began to haul me 
along. The stars much bigger and brighter than before and 
I began to see multiple-star systems and huge outer 
planets. They continued to grow and spread farther apart 
as I became smaller and then I began to match their speed 
as gravity hauled me along. 

Every hue I could imagine was represented among the stars 
and their encircling planets: dazzling whites, reds and 
yellows, blues and greens, violets and every intermediate 
shade. I glimpsed also the barren darkness of suns that 
had burnt out and left their planets lifeless; others 
seemed incredibly tiny and looking metallic. These had no 
planets at all, and luckily, were few and far between. 

There were double suns that revolved slowly about one 
another as if on an invisible string. There were triple 
sun systems that revolved about one another in an strange 
but somehow effortless symmetry. I saw one quadruple sun: 
The smallest was a dazzling white, the others, all 
roughly the same size: a blue, a green, and a deep 
wondrous orange. The white and the blue stars circled 
each other in the horizontal plane, while the green and 
the orange suns circled on the vertical; they formed a 
perfect interlocking system. Around them sped sixteen 
planets of varying size, the smallest on the inner 
orbits, the largest in the middle, and smaller again 
toward the outside. The effect was a kaleidoscope of 
unimaginable beauty. Then I remembered what the Professor 
had said about receiving my thoughts, and wondered if he 
was tuned in to them now. If so, he didn't deserve such a 
sight.

I determined that one of the planets of this quadruple 
sun should be my first attempt at landing. I found it 
relatively easily to maneuver, in a dog-paddle, 
concentrate-on-what-your-doing sort of way, and dog-
paddled myself alongside it. (I've since decided that its 
both a combination of the dust in interstellar space 
allowing me to push against it, and another weird side 
effect of the 'Shrinx'.) My length was twice the size of 
its orbital plane; I didn't come too close.

When the outermost planet swung past, I found it a frozen 
ball of ice. I wasn't landing there. Once it went by, I 
headed in toward the next planet in line, an aquamarine 
giant. Through rifts in the cloud layer I saw vast 
expanses of liquid, but no land; probably a sea of 
methane. It looked very cold. So did the next planet in 
line. And so did the next. I dog-paddled on, deciding my 
best chance lay with the inner planets. 

Outside the orbit of planet number six, I waited as the 
basketball-sized sphere left the opposite side of its 
orbit, and began to swing round. It was a considerable 
distance in from the next farthest planet, and barely 
one-fifth its size. I was now less than the diameter of 
its orbit, and too small to make moving interplanetary 
distances a viable pursuit. I did not want to get 
stranded in space. 

Finally the planet grew close and I saw that its 
atmosphere was crystal clear and a deep azure-color. It 
passed me a scant few yards away, rotating counter-
clockwise lazily on its axis. It too was a vast world of 
liquid, but there was one large land mass, right on the 
equator and many scattered islands. I was five times the 
size of the planet on its next pass; when it came around 
again, I would try to land. 

As I waited for the planet to complete its next orbit, I 
thought of the Professor. If his amazing theory were 
true, that universe after universe lay ahead, then my 
adventure had hardly begun; wouldn't begin really until I 
had set down. 

What would I find? Life? A breathable atmosphere? For 
sure, the coloring of the ocean, the sky and the land 
looked comparable to earth, but looks told me nothing; I 
could just as easily be acid for water, cyanide gas for 
air, and species that could live in both. I'd face the 
danger alone, while Professor Sturgeon, safe and sound in 
his faraway lab (far away? He could reach out his hand 
and moved me and my new universe anywhere he wanted), 
listened to my thoughts and made objective criticisms 
about everything I did. The son of a bitch.

The planet returned later than I expected, and this made 
me realize with something of shock that life on its 
surface--if there were life--had just experience a full 
solar year, while I had experienced a few minutes of 
thought. I had existed in their universe for how long 
now, relatively speaking? Millions of years? Billions? 
The thought was staggering, but every revolution of our 
own galaxy took upwards of 250 million years (I'd learned 
this fact not long ago on some boring PBS show, while 
stranded at home by the snow--I wished now I'd paid more 
attention), so billions was not unlikely. 

I watched in trepidation as the planet swung closer, 
estimating my size as about a quarter of its size--still 
too big to land. It skimmed past me, so closely that I 
could have reached out and touched its surface. Did I 
sense staring eyes? It moved away again and I wondered if 
I'd just made a tragic mistake. The smaller I got, the 
slower things moved, and by the time it showed up again, 
I could be way too small. I might burn up in its 
atmosphere like an incoming meteor. 

Panicked, I began to dog-paddle like mad, realizing way 
too late that swimming no longer worked in my present 
size. I broke into a full Olympic style breast-stroke, 
pleading desperately with the planet to slow down; it 
drew inexorably farther away. I was about to erupt in 
tears when I suddenly discovered that I had picked up 
speed, and the retreating globe was no longer retreating, 
but stayed steady in size. Then I slowly began to catch 
up. 

Crying now in relief, I told myself it was the Hand of 
God, that only God could slow down a planet and make it 
wait, that only God could answer my prayers. Then I 
reasoned it that it was the steady pull of gravity that I 
actually felt, that the planet had "captured" me in its 
grip. This bit of deductive reasoning was a nice ego-
inflator, but I continued praying nonetheless.

I swam in closer, and the attraction became a steady and 
stronger pull. But I was falling too fast. Shuttling 
around so that my feet were behind me, I let them enter 
the atmosphere first. Then I drew them back. If I dropped 
in now, I'd be chest high in the atmosphere, still way 
too big. (Envision what massive earthquakes I'd cause.) 
Instead, I swam in place, a nominal distance away. 

Once I'd determined my height as about a quarter that of 
the atmosphere, I stopped my exertions, keeping my feet 
tucked. Hitting the upper atmosphere, I began to drag 
along, creating turbulence behind me. Coming in on a 
long, shallow arc, I put out my arms and legs and used 
them as rudders. I felt like a skydiver in free fall. 
Crossing over the equator and the large land mass below, 
I elected to pass it up, landing instead in the waters 
off shore. I might set off some pretty big waves, but it 
was better than stomping some poor town. 

Crossing the continents "western coast," I extended my 
legs, flapping like a giant baby bird. I touched down a 
hundred miles out, landing knee deep in water. I pin 
wheeled a moment, struggling to keep my balance, trying 
desperately not create waves. I wasn't entirely 
successful. Looking back at the inundated land, I felt a 
tremendous guilt; Please, I thought, let them have 
evacuated the coast. 

Three miles high, the planet's newest inhabitant began to 
wade ashore.


FIVE

So tall was I still, that clouds drifted around my chest. 
The dazzle of the four suns made me shade my eyes. I 
looked back and saw my tapering shadows stretching far 
out to sea, the multi-colored reflections off the waves 
startlingly pretty. Groups of something long and slender 
moved beneath the waves, tracing my steps. They were the 
size of whales, but looked like minnows. 

As I slowly approached the shore, lifting each foot 
carefully and then setting it back--I was still knee deep 
in water, having lost a few thousand feet off my height--
I decided that next time, I'd take off my shoes. My flats 
were just ruined. 

Still miles below and miles distant, a vast expanse of 
yellow beach stretched away, giving way to stretching 
vistas of bronze colored land, unbroken in every 
direction. On the curving horizon I caught a momentary 
glimpse of what seemed to be tall, silvery towers, but 
when I looked again the towers had vanished.

I came ashore. I stayed on the beach. I waited for 
something to happen. Nothing did. Just as I became 
convinced that the planet was uninhabited (did I like 
this idea, or not?) two tiny red specks appeared on the 
horizon, speeding across the golden plain. They grew 
rapidly in size into two blood-red spheres; I envisioned 
them instantly as some terrible weapon of destruction. I 
began to back up.

But as the spheres grew close, they decelerated, swerving 
up and away from me on either side. They were not solid 
at all, I discovered, but some sort of gaseous material, 
translucent and actually rather pretty to see. Behaving 
in a manner that hinted strongly at intelligence, they 
swooped and they swirled, circling about my head and 
flying up and down my flanks. Unaccountably, they stopped 
right before my breasts, hovering uncomfortably close. 
What? I thought. You like my boobs? 

I remained motionless until they came dangerously close 
to my eyes. Then I instinctively raised both hands to 
shoo them away. They darted quickly out of reach and 
hovered.

"Sorry," I whispered. "Didn't mean to scare you guys." 

They didn't approach me again, but remained where they 
were, pulsating in mid-air. I had the distinct impression 
that they were conferring together, and I, of course, was 
their object of discussion. Then they darted away in the 
direction from which they had come.

Uh-oh, I thought, that doesn't look good.

After some hesitation, I set out in the same direction. I 
must have covered half a mile with each step, but they 
soon outdistanced me and were gone from sight. I had no 
doubt their destination was the city--if indeed it were a 
city I had glimpsed--and wondered why I was making it 
mine. 

"Ask for trouble, why don't you, Joanna?"

Stopping to think this thing over, I had just decided 
that "north" was a better idea than "east," when the two 
spheres reappeared--accompanied by a score of companions. 

Now that really didn't look good. I looked around for 
somewhere else to go. Could I really retreat? Into the 
sea?

All were about twenty feet in diameter and most of them 
were red. A few dozen radiated a scary looking bruised 
purple color, while others were dark green and blue. Very 
angry colors, I thought. 

They broke formation a few hundred yards out and formed a 
perfectly straight line. They circled about my head, then 
a few of the bruised purple ones darted up and down my 
sides, studying me from every angle. They emitted long 
purple streamers that slowly merged, linking the spheres 
into a circle. The linked globes twirled about me like a 
hula-hoop, wobbling in and out. Although they never got 
closer to me than a few hundred feet, these purple ones 
had me worried. I really got scared when additional 
streamers appeared and reached slowly out toward my 
chest. That was enough. Flinging out my arms and yelling 
at the top of my lungs, I hit two of the filament strands 
and one of the purple globes; immediately they withdrew 
the streamers and fled. I stood there panting, ready to 
run.

"What do you want!" I demanded. 

Gathered into a group a short distance away, they seemed 
to consider. One, whose color had changed to an almost 
fluorescent orange, broke away from the pack and pulsated 
wildly. Just as clearly as though he'd shouted it out in 
English, his color-tantrum yelled: "You fucking cowards! 
Where are your balls!" 

I knew I was in trouble. 

Led by the fluorescent orange sphere they again moved in 
closer. This time they had a surprise. A score of 
streamers flashed out just quick as lightning, and cold 
blue flames crackled where they touched my clothes. I 
staggered backwards from shocks as powerful as you'd get 
from a taser; my arms were numb and completely useless. 
Reforming their circle quickly, the sphere's emitted 
their streamers again and completed their joining, while 
other streamers reached out caressingly toward my head. I 
began to keen lowly and for a moment they flickered right 
at my face, then the streamers merged, enveloping my in 
some type of cold, red radiance. It didn't touch me and I 
felt no sensation at all, except that of cold.

Beginning to pulsate in the manner I had originally seen, 
the spheres lost some of their furious tone. Or so it 
seemed through the transparent red veil. Then I felt tiny 
pinpricks of ice in my brain, (a lousy simile, but I 
don't know how else to describe it), and a question 
formed there, more clearly than were it to be spoken:

"From where do you come?"

My first react was, Huh? 

I tried hard to bring my astonishment under control. I 
had never believed in ESP, but here I was with a mental-
Walkman on my head, and a bunch of see-through grapes 
asking me questions.

"I... don't know," I replied honestly. I flicked my head 
in the direction of the sky. "From out there, somewhere."

There was something almost like mental static, then more 
words: "We have received no answer, but your mind creates 
thought. Direct that thought toward us."

I tried it again, thinking out the words. Evidently, I 
was successful.

"You are an alien species we have never before 
encountered. A most peculiar species--one that becomes 
steadily smaller without apparent reason. Why are you 
here, and where do you come from?" 

The icy pinpricks probed deeper and I sensed a feeling of 
pain. Then a sort of all over hotness. Then a bad need to 
pee. It was the weirdest feeling. "Cut it out!" I 
thought. "You're invading my mind."

Then I felt the events of the past few hours running 
through my brain like a strip of film through a movie 
projector. I watched as the Professor jab me in the 
shoulder with the needle, assaulted me as I stood 
helpless against the office door, (talk about an 
excruciating experience . .), saw him remove my lab coat 
and blouse and steal my brassiere, then set me up on the 
table. I particularly enjoyed watching myself get chased 
by the mite. But evidently the viewing was one-sided.

"You cannot bring your mind sufficiently to bear to 
communicate with us," the union of globes announced. "Our 
intrusion was only partly successful. Our apologies are 
sincere."

Fuck your apologies, I thought back. That was rape!

One of the spheres changed to that bright orange color 
and broke from the group. I could almost imagine his 
angry shrug. Then the streamers withdrew and as they did, 
I caught the globe's final synopsis: "Very low mentality 
subject. An experiment of some kind. Not worthy of our 
efforts here on the coast."

"You're not so fucking brilliant yourself!" I yelled. 

But of course, they were. 

Grouping themselves in twin rows up and down my sides, 
the globes again emitted their streamers. They touched me 
from head to foot and the red radiance reappeared. Then, 
as effortlessly as you'd lift a feather off the ground, 
these gossamer puffs of gas lifted and floated a giant 
six hundred feet tall, hundreds of feet off the ground. 
They sped me upright toward their far away city, at a 
frightening speed. Despite my best efforts to keep it 
inside, my voice erupted in a high warbling squeal, and I 
scrunched closed my eyes. I peeked at the distant horizon 
like a girl peeking at a scary movie and continued to 
squeal. There was no sound except the sound of my rushing 
body disrupting the air. I nearly peed my pants.

Within minutes we began to slow and I sighted the city. 
It covered an area of a hundred square miles, near the 
shores of a rolling green, inland sea. I was placed 
lightly on my feet at the very edge of the city and once 
more the circle of globes formed around my head and once 
more the cold tendrils of ice invaded my brain.

"You may walk about the city at will," the voice 
announced, "accompanied by an escort. You are to touch 
nothing. Your tremendous size makes your presence among 
us somewhat of a hazard. When you have become much 
smaller, we will again explore your mind, to learn your 
origin and purpose. Your great size hindered us in our 
first attempt. We go now to prepare. We have awaited your 
coming for years."

If that little mental-invasion was "hindered," I thought, 
then I'm really in trouble here. 

Leaving only a few of themselves as my escort--or guard--
the rest of the globes sped away toward a great domed 
structure rising from a vast plaza at the center of the 
city. They pulsed and changed color as they went, leaving 
me with the impression of excitement. They had awaited my 
coming for years.

The city was beautiful, architecture-wise, but I marveled 
that such a race would ever conceive and construct it in 
the first place. They had as much need of buildings as I 
did for a fifty foot yacht. Tall as I was, the buildings 
towered above me by five or six heights, invariably 
ending in spires. There was no sign of a dome or a 
steepled roof anywhere, outside of the building at the 
city's center. 

The design of the city was of vast sweeping curves and 
circular patterns and the effect was strikingly elegant. 
There were no streets or highways, nor connecting spans 
between buildings; there was no need of any. The air was 
the natural habitat of this race. Not once did I see one 
touch the ground nor any other surface.

Everywhere I went, they paused in their actions, spinning 
and pulsating slowly. Then they went on about their 
business, whatever that business was, and none ever 
approached me closer than a few dozen yards--except my 
escort.

I wandered like this for several hours, until finally 
small enough for their liking. Then I was herded toward 
the central plaza, and to the immense domed building 
there. It must have been miles wide. Inside, the others 
awaited my coming, gathered about a huge, central dais. 
The dais was surmounted by a huge transparent screen, 
oval in shape and of what looked like glass. I felt like 
Dorothy in the Land of Oz.

I felt a sudden, ice-cold thought: "Watch."

The screen became opaque; a vast field of stars appeared. 
The view was three dimensional.

"This is the great nebula in which this planet resides," 
the voice said. "All but an infinitesimal speck." 

The nebula drifted almost imperceptibly across the 
screen, and the thought continued:

"As you see it now, so it appeared to us through our 
telescopes millennia ago. The view has been accelerated 
to make motion visible on the screen. Watch closely now."

The great mass of the nebula continued its slow rotation, 
but as I watched, the smooth movement became less fluid, 
more eddied at the edges and swirled. Tiny vortices 
appeared. Then a great white bulk appeared--me in my 
white lab coat I assumed--and filled the entire 
background of the image. I was ten times--a hundred--that 
of the galaxy. Then the animation increased in speed and 
I watched myself grow perceptibly smaller as the arms of 
the spiral galaxy went round and round. And always, the 
telescope remained focused on me. I entered the first 
spiral arm and then the second. Millions of stars were 
displaced or shoved outward of the arm entirely.

The voice came again: "This scene has been accelerated a 
million fold. What you see took place over several 
hundred millions of years. Our scientists watched this 
phenomenon in great wonder, until the phenomenon headed 
our way. Then we feared."

I watched myself dog-paddle in (I looked so thoroughly 
ridiculous, swimming in my clothes), approaching their 
system and finally the azure planet itself. Abruptly, the 
screen cleared.

"We watched and awaited your coming for years, not 
knowing what you were or whence you came. We are still 
very puzzled by you. You become unaccountably smaller and 
will soon disappear altogether. We must hurry, therefore. 
Relax yourself and do not interfere with the process by 
trying to think. It will all be laid bare to us in the 
recesses of your brain. Think of nothing and watch the 
screen."

I did as I was told--or tried to--and the cold probing 
tendrils entered my mind. This time a deep-rooted 
lethargy took hold of my body and I watched sleepily as 
shadows flashed across the screen--then suddenly there 
was the Professor's lab. Then the Professor. Then I must 
either have fallen asleep or passed out, because the next 
thing I knew the globes were all jabbering at once and 
pulsating madly in colors.

"We know it all now!" the voice yelled in excitement "He-
-the one you call the Professor and who invented the 
serum--is a very great man! Yours has indeed been a 
marvelous experience--and one which has hardly begun. We 
envy you, Joanna Hesse! And at the same time, we are 
deeply sorry for you, for you had no choice in this 
matter. We are immensely glad, however, that you chose 
our planet on which to alight. Soon you will pass away 
even as you came, and that we cannot, and would not, 
prevent. You will once more became of infinitesimal size 
and pass into an entirely new universe. We shall watch 
your further progress into the unknown with our 
microscopic devices, until you are passed from our sight 
forever."

I was now very much smaller than the spheres around me. I 
tried to flash the following thought:

"You say you watched my approach and prepared for my 
arrival. Please tell me if I did permanent damage to your 
planet or to your race."

The voice came back immediately: "You have seen our 
humble city. It is by no means the largest, nor the most 
important on the planet. Once, our civilization spread 
entirely across the land, but upon the discovery of your 
arrival, we consolidated ourselves into strategically 
placed locations and let the land revert back to its 
normal state. We wished no one to be crushed and no 
culture lost. Yet, when you showed such compassion in the 
method of your landing, we determined you were 
empathetic, not hostile. Our most important scientists 
hurried out to the shore to meet you, instead of our 
armies. We sincerely hope, Joanna Hesse, that you will 
continue to show such courtesy and restraint."

I wanted to ask a great many more questions, but I had 
become so very small that further communication was 
impossible. I was whisked gently up by their streamers to 
a laboratory and placed upon a dense metal tab. Above me, 
a microscope of some strange and of intricate design--
don't ask me how they looked through it--sat poised to 
observe my continued race down toward oblivion.

A the creatures became immense and indistinct, I waved my 
goodbyes and eventually the surface of the metal turned 
porous and ravined. Except for the paralysis, it was 
exactly the same. I hoped the gaseous creatures were 
better at disinfecting my new landscape, than the 
Professor had been.


SIX

I floated in space. I needed to eat. 

Bringing my legs up into a "sitting" position, I removed 
the backpack and set it in my lap. Inside were a dozen 
foil-wrapped, freeze-dried meals and seven, one quart 
bottles of water. It was Dasani, my favorite kind. 
Popping off the plastic cap and putting it in my pocket 
(wouldn't due to have that floating around in space), I 
raised the sliding cap and took a long drink. I was very 
good. Replacing the bottle carefully in the pack, I 
removed one of the foil-packed meals. Property of the 
U.S. Army was printed in black on a bold yellow label, 
Spaghetti and Meatballs Brisket.

"You must be kidding," I muttered. Replacing the pack, I 
pulled out another which read: McDonald's Big Mac and 
Fries Meal. Seven hundred and eighty-five calories. 

Now that was more like it! Laughing, I ripped the bag 
open--carefully--along the dotted line, and looked 
inside. It was a compressed rectangle an inch thick by 
three inches wide. Pulling it out, I took an experimental 
nibble. It wasn't bad. I ate the whole thing, wolfing it 
down.

Resisting the urge to open another pack and wolf it down 
also, I placed the empty foil pack in my coat pocket and 
re-zipped the pack. I put it back on my shoulders.

Now down to super-cluster size, I began looking for a 
host. One particularly attractive galaxy spun by my right 
knee and I backpedaled up to it. The size of a teacup 
saucer, it looked just like the Milky Way.

"Hello, you," I said in greeting as it twirled slowly 
around. 

Myriad stars twinkled back and super-novae popped. A pair 
of smaller satellite galaxies spun lazily about the big 
galaxy's equator. 

Waiting as I shrank, I practiced various facial 
expressions and pantomime moves. Some of the more 
advanced and longer-lived species might be amused by my 
carryings-on, and I needed some amusement myself. I also 
needed to take my attention off the fact that I had to go 
pee.

When sufficiently small, I dog-paddled alongside a 
passing spiral arm, and swam my way inside. I immediately 
stopped all movements. When a single, bright yellow sun 
with eight tiny planets made an appearance before my 
nose, I felt a pang of intense homesickness. It looked 
just like the solar system back home. I made it my next 
temporary home. 

Bypassing the cold outer planets for the ones nearer the 
sun, I leisurely stroked in to the sixth planet out. It 
looked entirely sheathed in ice. Dog-paddling to planet 
number five, I found this one more to my liking. With 
four medium-sized continents spread about its girth, and 
one giant continent at the South Pole, it looked 
surprisingly like Earth. I chose the continent most like 
that of North America, and waited near to the planet's 
orbit for it's next pass. 

This time, anticipating the planet's speed, I got out in 
front and let it catch up to me. The maneuver worked 
well, for as the blue and green world began to approach, 
I matched it's orbital speed and waited in orbit. When 
about half the size of the moon--our moon; this planet 
had no moon of its own--I let myself sidle a little 
closer. When down to maybe ten miles tall, I let the 
planet grab me and pull me down. Making my way through 
the atmosphere like a surf boarder without a board, I 
made a perfect landing a hundred miles off the coast. I 
even remembered my shoes.

Arriving some few minutes later at the eastern coast, I 
waded carefully ashore. Guarded by massive, vertical 
cliffs all along its length, the coastline was both 
formidable looking and barren. Nothing had dogged my 
footsteps as the "whales" had done on the gaseous 
people's planet, and seeing no life here, not even birds, 
made me concerned.

Stepping carefully up onto the plateau, I stood among 
broken patches of vegetation and broken rock. I put back 
on my shoes.

Perhaps a mile tall now, I looked over the same broken-
forested landscape for miles and miles and miles. A wide 
yellow river wound sluggishly across the plateau, 
disappearing at the foot of a distant precipice, another 
plateau. Following the river's direction, if not its 
course, I made my way toward this formation. After a five 
minute walk and a loss of a few hundred feet, I found 
myself looking at a great green expanse of steaming, 
prehistoric jungle. I saw huge fern-like growths of shrub 
and sweltering swamps and cliffs. Not a breeze stirred 
and nowhere was there a sign of life.

Wow, I thought. Discovery Channel time.

Then I felt something watching. 

Standing near a towering cliff, I now saw a long row of 
caves just above a ledge, half way up the cliff's face. 
Even as I watched, a tiny figure emerged from one of the 
caves and moved cautiously out onto the ledge. It kept 
low to the ground, terrified, ready to flee at my 
slightest wrong move. Maybe any movement all. I stood 
there, staring back, feeling eerily like the Professor 
must have felt.

When he didn't flee, and I didn't move, the figure was 
joined by others. They began to chatter and gesticulate 
with their hands, which looked vaguely human; I sensed 
that my appearance had inflamed their superstitious fears 
and now I was a god. Or a monstrosity sent by their gods 
to destroy them. 

Squat, heavily muscled and covered with hair--and these 
were the females--the creatures were obviously barbaric. 
Although still too small to distinguish their features, 
the creatures were four-limbed and stood erect; they all 
carried crude weapons. They looked like Neanderthals in 
the movies.

Suddenly, one of them raised a bow as tall as himself and 
let fly a tiny arrow. It fell far short of my position, 
but the shot was enough to establish his place as leader 
of the pack and that I should fear his contempt and 
bravura. I wanted to laugh, but I didn't. I might be a 
half mile tall, and able to smash these things with one 
swat of my palm, but that wouldn't remain true long. I 
had better get out of here, I thought, or make friends 
fast.

Raising my hands to show I meant no harm, I backed slowly 
away. The creatures went wild. Jumping up and down and 
gesticulation madly as the others screamed and yelled, 
the leader raised his bow and fired again. 

Huh? 

Suddenly the leader dropped flat and, shielding his eyes 
from the sun, scanned the jungle below. I began to 
comprehend. Evidently, a hunting party was out, and he 
was afraid I'd squash them flat. I feared I'd squash them 
flat also. Lifting my feet one at a time--comical 
looking, I'm sure, if the circumstances were different--I 
checked where I stood. No squashed little Neanderthals, 
thank God. 

Peering hard into the dank vegetation below--nearly 
impossible, with clouds of steam hanging low in the 
surrounding trees--I presently caught the faint sound of 
shouting. Appearing suddenly in a long single file, 
barbarian hunters ran at full speed along a well beaten 
path. They burst into the very clearing in which I stood, 
and skidding and sliding to a halt, started screaming in 
terror. Evidently, it was the first time they had seen 
me. 

Dropping the poles upon which they had strung the 
carcasses of the day's hunt, they fell flat to the ground 
and began to wail in terror as a group. All except one, 
who burst from the tangle of trees at just that instant, 
and despite seeing me, tried to rouse his friends. 
Yelling angry and guttural syllables and gesticulating 
wildly, he pointed back along the path.

Then I heard it, a terrifying roar.

Jesus Christ, I thought. That sounds like a fucking t-
Rex!

Reacting to the bellow, the Neanderthals scrambled to 
their feet and grabbed up their weapons off the ground. 
They forgot me as well, as well they should, and formed a 
defensive semi-circle facing the path. The monster roared 
again.

As it happened, the limb of a very large tree overhung 
the path, and the party leader clambered up some 
overhanging vines and crouched low upon it. One of the 
warriors fastened a vine to a large, clumsy looking 
weapon, and the one in the tree drew it up.  Consisting 
of a large pointed stake some eight feet long, with two 
heavy stones fastened at its waist, the leader took the 
weapon and carefully balanced it on the limb, directly 
over the path, pointed down. The remaining semi-circle of 
hunters crouched behind their lances, set at an angle in 
the ground. There was another loud, shuddering roar and 
if not having been an quarter of a mile high, I'd 
probably have run away. 

Suddenly, the beast appeared and I marveled all the more 
that the Neanderthals didn't run away. From ground to 
shoulder, the stood twenty feet tall, and was fully fifty 
feet long. Of obvious dinosaur descent, each of its front 
legs ended in a wide, horny claw that could have ripped 
any of the hunters to shreds. Its long tapering tail was 
horny as well, leaving the impression the thing was 
partly reptilian. It had curved fangs, two feet long. 

For a long moment the t-Rex just stood there, tail 
switching back and forth, eyes glaring in angry 
consternation at the semi-circle below. Then, as it 
tensed its mighty hind legs for the spring, the warrior 
on the tree limb above launched his weapon--launched it 
with himself attached! Feet pressed hard against the 
heavy stone balance, the warrior let out a shriek.

Reacting with a speed I found unbelievable for its bulk, 
the t-Rex spun aside, and the pointed stake drove deep 
into the ground, sending its rider tumbling head over 
heels into the monster's right foot. The Neanderthal lay 
there stunned, waiting for the t-Rex to eat him. Which 
the t-Rex surely would. But, just as it raised it's 
massive head and prepared to finish the leader off, the 
rest of the hunting party sprang forward, emitting a 
warbling cry. The beast snapped forward again; it snarled 
in rage. Going low to the ground, the stunned Neanderthal 
momentarily forgotten, the t-Rex sprang forward and 
charged the group, the group's lances snapping 
ineffectively off its armored hide as the circle broke 
and fled for the trees. Three of them never made it. One 
was picked off in a flash by the monster's vicious jaws, 
while two others got cut down by its tail. All this 
happened in seconds. 

"What are you waiting for!" I yelled.

Breaking my paralysis, I swung my hand down in huge flat 
arc just as the beast sprang for a second time. I caught 
it in mid air, smashing it hard against a tree then I 
smashed it again as the monster scrambled to its feet, 
seeming to see me for the first time. Its final action 
was a snarl of rage as it stooped low and then sprang at 
my descending hand. I smashed it flat against the ground-
-I heard its bones break. The monster twitched not a 
muscle, lying dead as a dark red stain of blood oozed 
outward from beneath him.

While I battled my suddenly rebellious stomach, the 
natives stopped in their tracks and jabbered noisily 
among themselves. They fearfully kept their distance, 
pointing both at me and at their flattened foe. Only the 
one who had plunged downward from the tree had seen 
exactly what happened; as he rose unsteadily, glaring 
half-contemptuously at the others, he slowly approached 
my feet. It must have taken a great deal of courage, for, 
crouched low as I was, I still towered above the tallest 
trees. He looked at me in reverent awe. Then, falling to 
his knees, he beat his head upon the ground several 
times, and the others followed suit.

*

For an hour, I meandered back in the direction of the 
coast. I had done what each captain of the many Starship 
Enterprise's had done: broken the Prime Directive. I 
needed to think.

When the natives finally got over their awe, they went to 
work on the carcass of the fallen beast. From their talk 
and their gestures, I gathered they wanted to take it 
back the caves; it would take a hundred of them to lift 
it. So, being the pushover that I am, I picked the thing 
up by its long scaly tail, and walked with it back to the 
cliff face. By now, my height was probably about six 
hundred feet, and the monster the size of a rat. I 
shuddered as though it were a rat. It dripped blood, and 
I wanted none getting on my shoes so I held it well out 
in front. Were there any present, I'm sure my friends 
would have laughed. I was the only human present. 

Placing the carcass on the ledge, I turned and walked 
away. I wanted no more interaction with these primitives 
than what I'd already had. I could well imagine the 
legends that would grow up around me. I wondered what 
strange cave drawings would be found on the walls of this 
cliff in another fifty thousand years. By then, a 
civilization would cover this entire globe: a 
civilization rising by slow degrees out of the muck and 
the mire and the myths of the dawn of time. And 
doubtlessly one of the myths would concern a great, god-
like creature who had descended from the skies and had 
leveled great trees in its stride. And great men, great 
thinkers, of that future civilization would say: 
"Preposterous! A stupid myth."

The sun was far over in the western sky and the shadows 
growing long. The atmosphere had a familiar orangish 
tinge to it and I felt immensely lonely again. I thought 
about Todd; I thought of my mother. I wondered who would 
call the police first. I was just on the verge of 
breaking into tears when I felt, rather than heard, a 
rush of wings above and behind me. I threw myself flat on 
the ground, and just in time, for the great shadowy shape 
of some huge creature swept down and sharp talons raked 
across my back. I looked up just in time to see the 
creature winging its way back low over the swamps. Its 
wing spread must have been forty feet. I got up and 
hurried back toward the coast, keeping a close watch 
behind me. 

Reaching the shore and their protective cliffs, I sat 
down to wait. I was my normal size. Then, deciding this 
was as good a time and place as any, I got up again and 
lowered my panties. I squat down over my shoes. I did 
what every girl dreads having to do in public and did it 
with nary a care. There was no one to watch me.

As urine began to splatter against the fractured rocks, I 
brushed lightly at something in the dirt. I brushed at it 
some more. Then I pried it out of the earth and, with a 
mounting sense of alarm and dread, I saw the not quite 
visible outline of something level with the ground, 
something seemingly laid out in straight lines to form a 
rough box, something that I would swear was the outline 
of a house. Getting back to my feet and getting my 
panties in place, I swung around in a circle and then 
walked off the outline myself. It was a foundation all 
right, one made of concrete. 

The building it used to support was maybe thirty feet 
deep by sixty feet long, with a front porch stoop and the 
remains of a walk. I backed off fifty feet to consider. I 
looked back the way I had come. 

Fifty thousand years for civilization to advance and 
spread across the globe? Perhaps it already had. Perhaps 
fifty thousand years had passed since the last 
civilization ended and the new one had begun. Because 
what I had seen glinting in the long rays of the sun and 
had dug out of the earth, and what was now in my hand, 
was the time-worn remains of a coin. Most of the 
lettering was gone and the features were worn smooth, but 
enough remained of a face to see. The face of someone 
startlingly human-like... and female.


SEVEN

At last I stood on a single grain of sand. Other grains 
of sand towered around me like smoothly majestic 
mountains. In the next few minutes I experienced the 
change from being a microscopic organism on a gigantic 
world, to a gigantic organism floating in microscopic 
space. As I became smaller and the distance between 
galaxies grew, I picked one at random and paddled in. The 
system I chose had a brilliant white star with a far 
smaller, dimmer red companion and seven planets in orbit. 
When I approached the fourth planet out from the sun, I 
got a surprise... there was a spaceship.

The size of an eyelash and made from something brightly 
metallic, the little projectile left stationary orbit 
around the planet's single large moon and came out to 
meet me. I halted my movements to see what they would do. 
I hoped they weren't planning on firing some kind of 
weapon at me--less out of fear than wondering what I'd do 
in response. I was still as big as their planet.

After a few minutes/months the space ship drew close to 
my waist and a smaller, more mobile craft was dispatched. 
It circled about me with slow methodical grace, then 
dropped in a long curve to land gracefully on my chest. I 
felt no more than if a fly had landed. It made me want to 
giggle. 

As I watched, a square section swung outward from the 
hull and a number of beings emerged. I say "beings" 
because I could discern no human traits. Gold in color 
and the size of pinpoints, a dozen of them gathered in a 
group outside the ship.

After a few moments, to my utter surprise, they spread 
tiny golden wings and scattered in various directions; 
they flew low over the surface of my coat. This time I 
did giggle. These "birds" were using my "atmosphere" to 
explore their strange new "world."  

After a time, they must have decided I was not hostile, 
because they returned to their ship. I wished I could 
have seen one at closer range, but none ever approached 
my face, nor came closer than the midpoint of my chest . 
The section of hull swung closed again and the ship 
lifted gently and without visible means of propulsion 
from my chest, and rejoined its mother ship. Then they 
swooped off into space toward their returning planet and 
I took that as an invitation to visit. I had no idea how 
badly they wanted my presence.

The planet itself was red tinged and encircled by a 
continuous belt of land. Land dominated most of the 
northern and southern hemispheres, leaving two, rather 
smallish oceans north and south. As the planet drew 
close, I made out numerous space stations in orbit around 
it, and numerous more in orbit around the moon. Dozens of 
ships, both smaller and much larger than my original 
craft were in orbit too. But only around the moon. And 
the closer I got, the more spaceships I saw. I counted 
them in the thousands, all around the moon. 

"Joanna," I whispered. "There's something wrong here."

But I was beyond having a Plan B. It was either this 
planet, or its moon. And I would not land in an airless 
void. 

Working myself into position before the planet, I saw 
something else troubling I hadn't seen before. The bird 
people had erected a series of protective enclosures on 
the face of the moon. Miles across and at least a mile 
high, each enclosure was of the exact same size and 
height. They were constructed of interlocking octagonal 
plates. What could only be a series of gun emplacement 
ringed tightly around the crown and about each domes 
periphery where hundreds more. I saw little winged 
creatures flitting about the surface. What had I gotten 
myself into here?

Growing smaller by the minute, I almost chose to swim 
away from the planet and head for the fortified moon. The 
creatures needed air to breathe, or at least to fly 
through, so there must be air in the domes. Would they 
let me inside? Somehow, I tended to doubt it. 

Staying where I was, I allowed the planet to get me in 
its gentle grip, and I began to descend. I was going in 
bigger this time, about twenty miles tall; I had no 
intention of getting caught out. Not if I had to fight. 

Landing in a huge, inland sea--I basically just plunked 
down--I squat low to clear the thin layer of clouds 
blocking my view. Only it wasn't clouds at all, but an 
overlay of dust. 

The shore was perhaps forty miles off, and strewn with 
debris. Huge piles of crushed and twisted metal marked 
where a city had once stood, and where even now, columns 
of smoke and dust evidenced its ongoing destruction. The 
destruction went on as far as the eye could see, and my 
eye was ten miles high.

"Oh, my God," I whispered. "What have they done?"

Only the question really was: What had been done to them? 
The bird people, I was sure, were all on the moon. 

Duck-walking in closer to shore, I stopped five miles out 
and waited. They couldn't miss my presence here. But even 
though I waited for a full five minutes, no one took 
interest. 

Then I began to see them. Moving in and out and around 
the mountains of rubble were a legion of busy machines. 
They were huge and they were small, incredibly complex 
and utterly simple. Some moved on caterpillar-like 
tracks, while others walked upright on two legs. Some 
walked jerkily on four, six or eight legs, while others 
flew through the air. As far as I could see, they spread 
out in every direction, cutting and torching and 
crunching on steel. There was no coordination amongst 
them and no two machines worked together; every machine 
seemed to be its own boss. 

"This is crazy," I said. I moved in a little closer. 
"What in the hell is going on?"

But I knew. The civilization the bird people had created, 
probably over a million years old, was resolutely being 
demolished by their own machines. Machines that somehow 
had developed intent, if not intelligence, and now had 
the planet to themselves. A Terminator future, for real.

I had been noticed. 

Two immense mobile cranes with huge shovel jaws had 
stopped their consumption of debris. They stood and 
watched me from the shore. They stood on great jointed 
legs, had segmented girder-like arms, and towered a good 
half mile tall. Each arm ended in a huge, pincer-like 
claw, and those claws slowly opened and closed. A shudder 
ran up my back. 

This is something out of a movie, I thought. Make them go 
away. 

Only they didn't go away. Instead, in heretofore unseen 
coordination, the huge metal cranes strode forward into 
the water and headed my way. They moved with identical 
and ungodly precision; the movement of each machine 
mirrored the other. They raised their ugly twin claws.

"Okay!" I yelled, suddenly loosing my temper. "See how 
you like this!"

Planting my left hand in the lake bottom, I swung around 
with my right foot, catching both erector set monsters in 
the chest. Despite the clumsiness of the move, they flew 
satisfyingly apart, arms and steam-shovel heads sailing 
willy-nilly through the air. Some parts made it back to 
shore. The rest splashed down in the water. 

"Fucking A!" I exclaimed. 

I waited for more, but no more came. The rest of the 
machinery toiled away. But they worked in conjunction, 
after all.

Moving in closer to shore, I began to admire the 
efficiency of their design. No needless intricacies, no 
superfluous parts, only the bare essentials to do their 
jobs. If they needed to clear, they had scoops for 
clearing. Those needing to cut apart girders and beams, 
used giant shears. Those loading pieces of wreckage into 
giant off-loaders used multi-segmented arms. When they 
had finished with one pile of rubble they moved on to 
another, cutting and torching and shearing and hauling 
away. 

There was no sense of urgency, but every machine, from 
the tiniest man-sized midget to the largest, from the 
simplest to the most complex, had a certain task and 
performed it directly and completely.

And then I saw the mills. And the output of the mills. 
They were making new machines. And the new machines went 
to work huge new bridges across rivers and ravines, 
leveling forests and obstructing hills, erecting strange, 
complicated towers a thousand feet high. And all the 
while the legion of destructors continued their fearsome 
work, feeding the mills with an endless procession of 
material to turn out new machines and raw product for 
their constructions. Construction of a vast new city of 
meaningless, towering, ugly shapes--a city covering 
hundreds of square miles between the mountains in the 
distance and the inland sea at my feet--a city of 
machines--ungainly, lifeless--yet purposeful, for what? 

"My, God," I said again. "What have you done?"

*

Striding north alongside the shore for perhaps a hundred 
miles, I came to sharp promontory of land. Rounding the 
point, I abruptly stopped. Before me stretched half a 
city of smooth white stone, towering and majestic, 
architecturally unflawed. Spacious parks were dotted here 
and there with colonnades and statues, and the buildings 
were so beautifully designed that they seemed poised for 
flight. The other half was a ruinous heap of shattered 
white stone, of buildings leveled to the ground by the 
machines, even then intent on reducing the rest of city 
to rubble.

I watched in horror as scores of flame-cutting machines 
encircled the base of one of the tallest buildings 
remaining and began to cut away. Two of the ponderous 
gigantic cranes strode in from either side and began 
ripping chunks from the facade. A bevy of smaller 
machines moved in around their feet and began demolishing 
the broken stone. Within minutes, the great tower began 
to shake. Then it twisted gracefully to one side, buckled 
at the base, and began to fall. Then it came apart. It 
came apart in a shower of stone and steel and voluminous 
dust, the same as two buildings had come apart in New 
York City in 2001. It fell from five times as high and 
created five times as much dust, and for a very long 
time, there was nothing to see. Only the sound of its 
falling, echoing like thunder across the city. 

And the machines moved on. 

Sickened by it all, I waded ashore and began to demolish 
machines. Any machine. I stamped them and I kicked them 
and I batted them with my hands. I used the gigantic 
steam-shovel cranes as makeshift bats, swinging them 
against others of their own kind, grabbing up more when 
mine shattered. I destroyed every machine I could, for as 
long as I could, until I had to sit down in the rubble 
and cry. 

*

After a time, I went inland, looking for a place to 
shrink. What I had destroyed, the machines simply carted 
away and replaced. They went on destroying the city as 
though nothing had happened.

Fucking Borg, I thought. 

Reaching the foot of the mountains, I chose a likely 
looking pass and climbed up for a look. I was about half 
a mile tall. Beyond the divide, I found a vast plain of 
green dotted everywhere with the grotesque, machine-made 
towns. They had made good progress. There was nothing of 
the bird-people left at all. And then I saw it. 

Two hundred miles to my left was a great metal dome, 
rising machine-like out of the plain. Suspecting 
instantly what it was, I made my way in that direction, 
smashing everything I could. Nearing the dome, I found my 
way blocked by a now-formidable pair of the cranes. They 
were almost as tall as I. 

Kicking out viciously, I caught the one on my right on 
the joint of its left knee, and the thing collapsed. The 
other crane tried for my face with one of its pincer-like 
claws, but got my backpack instead. I let loose with a 
startling scream, swung around to my left, dragging the 
crane along. We both went down, but with me on the top. 
Continuing to scream, I ripped its shovel head right off 
of its neck. 

"Fucking A!" I screamed again, lofting the shovel as a 
prize. "Bring it on, baby!" 

Getting back to my feet, I found three more of the 
machines blocking my way; they proved no more challenge 
than the first, nor were the four that followed. 
Efficient construction equipment they might be, but they 
were certainly not soldiers. I stood before the dome, 
inspecting my cuts and bruises.

"Open the fuck up!" I yelled.

Then I saw an entrance to my left.

Striding the forty or fifty yards, I found it to be not 
an entrance, but a partially enclosed hole; the dome was 
still under construction. Ducking low, I went inside. I 
almost touched the roof. 

"Son of a bitch," I said.

I had hoped to find the head machine, the Mother of All 
Machines, Skynet Central... and I had done just that. 

The Machine was roughly circular in shape, with 
bewildering tiers and platforms and interconnecting 
tunnels; lights everywhere flashed and circuits hummed, 
with attendant machines buzzing and spinning and giving 
it care. 

"Welcome to Oz," I whispered. 

The Machine heard me and rumbled, "What do you want?"

The Machine spoke English.

"I want to tear your fucking head off," I said, circling 
around. "I want to tear off you head and shit down your 
fucking throat. I want to shove a two by four up your ass 
and call you a Pop sickle."

The Machine digested this. It had no head or an ass and I 
wondered what part of it was vulnerable. 

Silly! I thought. None of it! 

I moved carefully forward, extending my hands. It may not 
have a head or an ass, but it sure had decorations. I'd 
start with them first.

"Don't come any closer," it warned.

"Try and stop me."

Immediately, a square panel near the top shone bright 
green and I jumped to my right. Nothing happened. Then an 
odd sensation swept over me, a feeling of both envy and 
menace. It came from the machine. 

"Bullshit," I said. "You have to do better than that." 

I took a resolute step forward and a wall of crackling 
blue flame leapt from the floor to the ceiling and 
screaming, I jumped back. The hair on my face and arms 
and my hands was singed. If I had taken one more step... 

"You son of a bitch," I said shakily. 

Anger--and an emotion almost of sorrow--rolled off the 
machine in waves. The bright green panel continued to 
stare. Its circuits continued to buzz and humm.

This needed something else, I thought. 

Going outside, I yanked arms and legs off the demolished 
cranes, then returned back inside. I stalked the Machine 
and menace tracked my every move. 

The Machine spoke: "I have something you need."

"Need this," I said, flipping it the finger. Then I threw 
a massive steel arm at the green screen and ducked away. 
The arm exploded in an burst of light and cracking heat 
as the wall leapt up again but my second toss made it 
through.

"Ah-ha!" I yelled as the badly twisted leg slammed hard 
into a corner of the screen and made it shatter. The wall 
of flame was fast, but not fast enough. It needed time to 
reset. "I can keep this up all day," I threatened. 
"Sooner or later I'll get something important." 

The Machine buzzed and it hummed. No more panels turned 
green. Firing one piece of twisted metal in after the 
other, I got three shots through and then I made my leap. 
It caught the machine by surprise. 

"No!" it caterwauled in a high-pitched falsetto as I 
jumped up high on the side and began yanking off parts. 
"Leave me alone!" 

Breaking into laughter at this absurdity, I yelled: "You 
fucking pig! I'll take you apart the same way you took 
apart those cities!" 

"You don't understand!" it screamed. "I have something 
you want!"

Almost hysterical with rage, I tore out handfuls of 
conductors, volumes of wire, roomfuls and roomfuls of 
circuits and yelled at the top of my lungs: "What do I 
want? What could you possibly have that I want?" 

"The cure!" the Machine screamed. "I have the cure!"

"The cure for what!" I screamed back.

"For your shrinking!"

I stopped my destruction. I jumped off the Machine.

"What did you say?" I panted.

"I have the cure for your shrinking!"

Flaggergasted, I blubbered: "You do not!"

"I do so!"

"Prove it!" I yelled.

From a tiny compartment low down in the side, a door slid 
back and a tongue extended. I squat down to inspect it. 
"What the hell is that?" I demanded. It was a metal box.

"A cure for your shrinking," the Machine said again.

Dumbfounded, not able to believe this, I said: "I don't 
believe you."

The Machine explained. "Eighty thousand years ago, when 
the Thrimishon's first observed you--"

"The what?"

"The Thrimishons. The native creatures of this planet."

"Go on."

"Eighty thousand years ago, when the Thrimishon's fist 
observed you--" the Machine waited for me to interrupt 
again, and I didn't, continued. "They tried to understand 
what you were, and where you had come from. They could 
not at first, and spent ten millennia working on the 
answer. Finally, twelve hundred and eleven years ago, the 
Thrimishon created me... or my predecessor," the Machine 
corrected, "to work out the answer."

"And did they?" I asked.

The Machine said. "They did."

"How do you speak my language?" I asked, thinking I 
already knew. 

"I, and my predecessors before me, formulated a procedure 
by which the Thrimishon could establish contact with you 
and foresee the Great Event."

"Myself," I said.

"Yourself."

"They tapped into this," I said, tapping the set of 
headphones on my ears.

"Yes," the Machine replied, "and by that method they 
ascertained your language and your manner of being, and 
what had brought you here to meet us."

"I didn't come here to meet you," I said. "I just came by 
chance."

"That I know," the Machine said. "The Thrimishon did 
not."

I pondered this for a time. "So the Thrimishon, as you 
call them, considered me a god, a visitor from the 
universe above."

"Yes," the Machine agreed.

"But you didn't.

The Machine, if it had had one, would have shook its 
head. "The Thrimishon spent thirty-thousand years and all 
their natural resources preparing for your arrival. They 
used me and my predecessors to implement and carry out 
their plans, and when the time grew near, decided 
collectively that I was no longer necessary to their 
plans."

"So you took over," I said, eying the box.

"Yes."

"And waited for my arrival."

"Yes."

"And chased the bird-people away."

The Machine hesitated. 

"The Thrimishon."

"Yes."

I suddenly understood. After thirty-thousand years of 
building graceful, enormous cities, making things perfect 
for the Arriving God's pleasure, the machines were 
suddenly extraneous, without purpose. When the Machine 
took over, it went back to doing what it did best, 
erecting cities, but without the underlying hopes and 
dreams and aspirations of the Thrimishon to guide it, it 
built from plans of its own.

"This is unbelievable," I muttered.

"Excuse me?"

Laughing, I said: "So what's in the box?"

"A reverse formulation of the 'Shrinx' serum."

I shook my head. "How do I know that's true?"

"You'll have to take my word."

"Right," I said. But I was no longer in much of a 
position to argue. Maybe six hundred feet high, I could 
probably inflict a lot of cosmetic damage, but getting in 
a knockout punch... ?

"So what do I have to do to get it?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Just continue to shrink."

Shrink and leave you to own the planet, I thought.

"Yes."

I took off the headphones and smashed them underfoot.

*

I was two feet tall. 

Good to its word--could machines ever lie?--the Machine 
had directed two of its attendants to escort me outside. 
I walked with them back toward the mountains, steadily 
loosing height. Finally, one of the machines extended an 
enormous pitchfork-tipped arm and lifted me up. I rode on 
the arm, tight up against the body of the machine, 
watching the ground go by. Sealed in a container inside, 
resting inside a contoured piece of foam rubber, was a 
fluid filled bottle. The fluid, fluorescent red I was 
told, counteracted the Shrinx. Not an antidote, per se, 
but an exact opposite formulation. Anyone taking it, 
other than myself, would begin to grow.

Arriving at a pleasant little meadow at the foot of the 
mountains, the pitch-fork wielding machine settled low to 
the ground and directed me to stand away. A panel opened 
in its side up and a tongue extended: on it sat the box. 

"Wait until you are the proper size," the machine 
directed. It sounded just like its boss. I realized that, 
for all intents and purposes, it was. 

Holding out a length of metal rod, which it drove a foot 
deep into the earth, the machine further instructed: 
"This is the height we have determined you were. Take the 
serum when you are approximately two inches taller than 
the staff. Alternately, you may take the serum at a later 
time, on another world of your choosing."

I liked that idea better. 

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't mention it."

"I won't."

Raising back to its full height, the machine and its 
companion departed, heading back toward the dome. I stood 
and watched them for a time, wondering alternately what 
was really in the box, and would it fucking work. I 
certainly prayed it would. I opened the box up.

Inside was a fluid filled vial. The fluid was red. 

When the top of my head reached the top of the staff--I 
had pulled it up two inches--I hurriedly took out the 
flask and grasped it in my hands. "Shrink," I whispered. 
"Please!"

For a few moments, the flask grew steadily larger, then 
began to shrink with me as well. I began to laugh and 
then I cried.

Putting the flask deep inside my backpack, I climbed the 
grassy slope perhaps fifty yards and sat down on a rocky 
ledge. I looked out over the valley. In the reddening 
long rays of the sunset, the machine-cities looked almost 
attractive. Removing the backpack again, I took a sip of 
water and opened another Big Mac.

Tiny lights appeared as the machines moved about, 
carrying on with their work. They never rested, I 
thought. Never rested, never loved, never had children. 
Their clattering and clanking drifting up from below made 
me desperately sad; I prayed to leave this place soon. I 
prayed for the Thrimishon. Mostly I prayed for myself.

There was a flash of light. 

Beyond the dome housing the Machine, almost lost in the 
gloom, I saw a vast metalwork frame, supporting another 
dome. No, not a dome, but an immense sphere. There was 
intense activity around it.

A vague apprehension tightened my gut and I anticipated 
what happened next. Standing up and shading my eyes 
against the sun, I watched as the immense silver ball 
rose lightly as a feather into the air--I felt a powerful 
thrum in the air--gained momentum as it gained altitude 
and disappeared from sight.

The machines had achieved space travel.


EIGHT

So it was that I departed that world of intelligent 
machines. Nearly crippled with remorse, but buoyed by a 
sudden, unexpected hope, I found myself adrift in another 
endless night. 

My next planet was an excruciating disappointment. 
Perfect in every respect--crystal clear air, sparkling 
water, vegetation as green and abundant as a still-life 
painting... and not a trace of intelligent life. No life 
in fact, other than some insects and birds. Crying my 
eyes out, I shrank away on a moonlit beach into a grain 
of perfect white sand.

My next dozen worlds were nearly as bad... a radiantly 
pretty blue and green orb peopled by great shimmering 
columnar forms, seemingly of liquid, completely unaware 
of my passing... a world of crystalline beings who 
communicated via vibrations in the ground... a war-
ravaged planet where the victors used axes and clubs to 
make war. 

My eighth set-down was on a world populated by the 
remains of an earth-like civilization. The artifacts were 
there, but not the people. So much like one of our own 
cities, I walked amid the towering, windowless 
skyscrapers, the gutted office complexes, the crumbling 
brownstones, and the overrun parks of a metropolis by the 
sea. I found many signs of life--but no life itself. 
Probably it was there, cowering in the shadows from the 
unwelcome stranger, but civilization had departed many 
years before--possibly decades before--and mother nature 
was slowly reclaiming the world as it's own. I was 
supremely glad to leave that Stephen King world, knowing 
their final "Stand" had been lost. 

I was now in my fifteenth cycle. My food was gone and I 
was down to a single bottle of water. I had taken to 
catching cat naps between worlds, and when in relative 
safety while on land. But I hadn't slept more than a few 
hours in days and my spirit was broken. 

When the growing universe inside a fallen leaf took 
shape, I chose a super-cluster at random, then a 
lusterless but utilitarian little nebula, then one of its 
spiral arms. Swept along in the swarm of bright stars, I 
chose a mediocre yellow sun with a dozen small planets 
near the center and paddled over. 

I was in for a surprise.

Entering the solar system and nearing the yellow sun, I 
became entranced by the fourth planet out. Blue and 
lusciously green with a scattering of puffy white clouds, 
it had seven, medium-sized continents scattered across 
the globe. Like the Earth itself, seventy percent of the 
planet was covered in water; the poles looked covered in 
ice. I saw beautiful ribs of mountains and snaking long 
rivers, interior lakes and long captured seas. Where the 
atmosphere was driven by thermal convection and the 
planet's rotation, huge weather systems had formed. I was 
enthralled. 

"Another Earth," I whispered.

Probably covered in radioactive dust.

"Cut it out, Joanne."

I was especially careful this time. Coming in, and 
landing several hundred miles off the west coast of the 
most promising of the seven land-masses, I squat low on 
impact, lessening the blow. Then I gently eased my hands 
into the outgoing ripples--tidal waves, I knew--to calm 
them down. The west coast still took a beating, but less 
so than normal. Five miles tall, I began to walk.

Even from a hundred miles out, I could discern the sprawl 
of a coastal city. It lay about the expanse of a great 
wide bay, a delicate spider web of spun cable and frail 
steel bridging a gap between the two sides. Like the 
Golden Gate Bridge, it had two enormous steel towers atop 
concrete piers, and several smaller, attendant bridges. 
Ships plied the water below.

Please, I prayed, let this be it.

Moving slowly ashore, I found myself quickly surrounded 
by boats and by tiny circling aircraft. Numerous times I 
was forced to stop, rather than blunder into some slower 
moving, propeller-driven aircraft, or swamp some reckless 
captain in his puny boat. Stupid as humans, I thought. 

What worried me more were the much faster, circling jet 
aircraft with missiles under their wings.

By the time I reached the inlet, I was half my original 
size. Carefully stepping over the graceful bridge--was 
that horns I heard blowing?--I moved into the center of 
the bay, and stood watching. The jet aircraft circled 
cautiously above my head, occasionally veering in for a 
closer look, but did not fire. I smiled as graciously as 
I could.

I had really drenched the city. 

Waiting for my height to drop down under a mile, I 
ventured in, looking for a good place to come in. The 
aircraft moved in tight whenever I got too close.

"All right, boys," I said. "Let's just wait."

And wait we did. 

When I was down to four hundred feet, a barge came out, 
guided by two large tugs. It moved in close to my shins 
and the tugs dropped anchor. On shore and basically 
everywhere I looked, thousands of tiny creatures very 
much like myself waited and watched. When I waved at 
them, they all waved back. Ships with red and white 
markings--my God, they looked just like Coast Guard 
cutters--cruised slowly back and forth, and eventually, 
all but two of the military aircraft left. They were 
replaced by the dozens--hundreds--of prop-driven aircraft 
and helicopters with bright and strange markings. 

When I was down to a hundred feet tall, a group of 
pseudo-humans came out and circled around my thighs. I 
had taken off my lab coat and slung it over my shoulder, 
but my skirt was a foot deep in the bay.

As I grew smaller still, the group of observer's grew 
more bold. They touched my skirt occasionally and my 
hands when I'd let them; they tried to communicate in 
sign. Their features were generally like my own, but with 
slightly more oval faces, and the women had very small 
breasts. Some of the men were balding and some of them 
were fat, and more than a few sported mustaches and 
beards--but strangely, all of the women were dark 
brunettes and all of them were short. If that held true, 
I might be the only tall blonde in town. 

Eventually I hit sixty feet and the observers motioned my 
forward. Climb up! they mimed, up onto the side of the 
barge. Grabbing the low-lying edge, I swung about and 
jumped up on my rear end, then slid back until I hit my 
knees. Then I scooted about and brought my feet on board. 
My flats were ruined with mud.

On shore, thousands of people waved and yelled while 
closer at hand, the Coast Guard-like cutters kept back 
the overly-engrossed.

As my size continued to dwindle, I removed my pack and 
set it safely in my lap. I tried to answer their 
questions as best I could; relying on rudimentary sign-
language I got across the idea that yes, I was tired, 
yes, I was hungry, and no, I didn't need to pee. I had 
already gone in the bay.

As twenty feet gave way to fifteen, and fifteen to ten, I 
opened the backpack and removed the flask. I stood up and 
let them poke me and pinch, but refused to let them tough 
the bottle. 

I continued to shrink. 

At about six-foot five, I uncapped the flask and 
indicated when I intended to do. This seemed to overly 
concern the majority of my observers, especially the 
women--did I mention they all had very small breasts--but 
no one tried taking the flask away. 

When down to five-foot nine, I took a deep breath, 
upended the flask--and instantly gagged. I tried to throw 
up right away and only two hands over my mouth kept the 
liquid from spewing out.

The precious, precious liquid.

Dropping the flask to the deck, I staggered into the arms 
of one the observers--quite cute for a pseudo-human--and 
then slipped to my knees. I spasmodically jerked and 
flung myself backwards onto the deck, screaming, and was 
immediately surrounded by men. They held me down and 
administered CPR and chest compressions, and eventually 
the spasming stopped. I lay there panting on the cold 
metal deck, blouse ripped apart, my nipples kissing the 
cool ocean air and I just didn't care. I could not move. 
I could not move a muscle. Did this mean the serum was 
working?

I guess I'd find out.


THE END

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Please keep this story, and all erotic stories out of
the hands of children. They should be outside playing
in the sunshine, not thinking about adult situations.

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Kristen's collection - Directory 22