Chapter 1: Thursday, June 26th, 3321

Story Notes:

I started this story in 1998, and have worked on it off and on for many years. I've written and finished many giantess and shrunken man stories, and I decided to finally finish this story. There will be non-fatal vore, but it will happen in later chapters. I plan on making it into a graphic novel, as I am also an artist.

I recently revised this chapter and got rid of references to hyperspace and changed the reason they go back in time to the continuators malfunctioning.

I had some help from Gator, the author of the Empire series, he also came up with Portasizers. He re-wrote part of the first chapter, and his version has a thousand percent more literary value than my original version!

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Miniaturized military crew:

Captain Lobo Vargas

Commander Carlos Cruz

Sergeant Desiderio Diego

Corporal Luis Lopez

Corporal Huan Hangchow

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Space pirates:

Scrapper

Gator

Slackjaw
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Normal-sized 21st century characters:

Megan Weiss, 13 years old

Margaret Weiss, Megan’s 35-year-old mother

Shelly Krieger, Megan’s 13-year-old best friend

Christopher Krieger, Shelly’s 16-year-old brother

Leila Landa, 13-year-old school-mate of Megan and Shelly
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Chapter 1: Thursday, June 26, 3321, the Kuiper Belt

A mass as dark as obsidian hid among the huge methane, ammonia and water ice chunks deep past the orbit of Neptune in the Sol system.

Inside the grim ship, three figures were perched above various consoles tentatively watching and waiting. The dull green glow of a display playing across the eyes of man at the scanning console as he watched the potentially lucrative and life changing readout of the far range sensors.

His dry voice finally spoke, "There they are... We found them," Slackjaw reported to his brothers who looked at each other, wringing their hands, smiles grew across their eager unshaved faces. Scrapper grinned as Gator cracked his knuckles as if about to pick a rather tricky lock.

All three huddled around the scanning screen like buzzards watching a unicorn about to perish. Practically salivating. Sweat dripped from Scrapper's brow due to the ship being powered down and the stuffy stale air. They were forced to hide their power signature from the other pirates in the Kuiper Belt who were most definitely ALSO trying to hunt this once in a lifetime opportunity.

"There... That's it..." Slackjaw pointed to the screen reporting back an encrypted transponder radio code. The "special" signal. The kind only the military uses for special occasions. The kind they ESPECIALLY use when something very secret is happening. The three men didn’t need to decrypt the code. Its very presence means THIS was what they had been hunting for these weeks and months!

Their faces lit with green as their pupils dilated, imagining the riches they will receive from such a bounty. But another blip appeared right at the opposite edge of their scan range.

"What's that one?" Scrapper asked. 

Slackjaw noticed too, and started the scanning all over again on the main screen. The computer detected every spectrum and analyzed them. The system started displaying some data using their HIGHLY illegal program they had "acquired" through less than reputable means.

"Alpha Centauri merchantmen, ore convoy. Basic security detail, it's... heading to Mars," Slackjaw reported to his brothers who continue to try to peer out the main screen for any sign of trouble. Just knowing one wrong move could mean ALL this will have been for nothing. These brothers were the best because they remained sharp at all times. Attention to detail. Hunting with every advantage.

But after a moment, something clicked with Scrapper and he thought aloud. "Wait a minute... Why would a freighter haul ore from outside the system? It's MUCH cheaper to refine, then deep space deliver..." he says scratching his head.

All three brothers then looked at each other. Knowing Scrapper was 100% right. "That's the REAL secret delivery!" 

“Bring us in closer to that freighter,” said Scrapper, “and use surveillance tech to listen in on what the crew is talking about!”

Gator hurried to his console to begin the process of firing up the ion propulsion drive while Slackjaw monitored what was being spoken within the freighter…

Meanwhile, in the cockpit of the space freighter, Captain Lobo Vargas sat in the command chair, while Commander Carlos Cruz piloted the ship. Sergeant Diego sat twiddling his thumbs as he supervised Corporal Hangchow, who was repairing a conduit in one of the walls of the large cockpit. Corporal Luis Lopez sat at the scanner console.

“Captain Vargas,” Corporal Lopez asked, “what is it we’re hauling in this old rust bucket, anyway?”

“Space Command didn’t specifically tell me to keep it a secret from you guys, so I guess I can tell you. We’re hauling a new type of neutrino dissimilator cannon that was developed on a space station in the Alpha Centauri system. It’s supposed to be able to slice through a quantum force field using a new technology. Size inhibitors will be ineffective against this new type of shrink ray!”

“You guys should be quiet about that,” said Hangchow. “The walls have ears.”

“Oh, nobody’s going to pay attention to us, Hangchow!” said Sergeant Diego. “As far as the rest of the solar system is concerned, we’re just another freighter hauling worthless ore to a processing station. Any space pirate in his right mind is guaranteed to ignore us!”

Corporal Lopez looked up from his scanner console. “Hangchow’s right, sir! Pirates could pick up the conversation without our equipment detecting it!”

“Commander Cruz laughed and said, “You guys are getting worked up about nothing!”

Scrapper’s pirate ship closed in on the freighter, but Captain Vargas and his crew didn’t detect it because of the sophisticated cloaking device. Scrapper, sitting in the command chair, waited for an update from Slackjaw.

“We’re within radio and energy weapons range, Scrapper! But we’re too far to engage the freighter with our missile weapons system.”

“Slackjaw,” said Scrapper, “open an audio-visual channel to the captain of that vessel!”

In the cockpit of the freighter, Commander Cruz picked up the signal from Scrapper’s ship.

“Captain, we’re being hailed!”

Put it on the forward view-screen,” Captain Vargas ordered. “I didn’t expect any radio contact with Space Command this early in our mission!”

“The transmission isn’t from Space Command, sir,” said Corporal Lopez. “It’s coming from a nearby cloaked vessel, but I can’t pinpoint its location!”

“Put it on the main screen!” Vargas ordered.

Just then, an image of Scrapper, Slackjaw, and Gator filled the main forward view-screen. Captain Vargas stood up in utter amazement and whispered, “Scrapper?”

“Lobo Vargas?” said Scrapper. “By the moons of Neptune! I didn’t expect you to be in command of this vessel. It’s because of you that I was kicked out of space command and sent to that prison colony on Triton. Now I have two reasons to kill you!”

“There’s nothing of value on this freighter-” said Vargas, but he was cut off by Scrapper.

“You can drop the cover story, Vargas! I’ve got your entire conversation with your junior crew members describing the weapon prototype in vivid detail. Would you like me to play back the recording?”

“Corporal,” said Captain Vargas, “close channel, shields up!”

Corporal Lopez did as Captain Vargas ordered, and the cockpit of Scrapper’s ship disappeared from the main forward view-screen.

Scrapper's ship fired energy weapons.

"Captain, our freighter has sustained damage!" said Commander Cruz. “Another hit like that, and we're through!"

“Commander, set a course through a separate space-time continuum, then use the continuators to shift back and forth between that reality and realities chosen at random, it’ll be harder for Scrapper to track us!”

“Yes sir! It should take about thirty seconds!”

“We don’t have thirty seconds, commander! Activate the continuators now, that’s an order!”

Back on Scrapper’s ship, Slackjaw informed Scrapper that they were in missile firing range of the freighter.

“Hit them with about three warheads, that ought to wake them up!”

Slackjaw fired the warheads, and the freighter was rocked with explosions. The shields held up until the last warhead hit. The shields were breached just before the freighter entered another reality.

“We scored a direct hit with that last warhead,” said Slackjaw. “They must’ve shifted into another continuum. We have no way of knowing where they went, so there’s no way to track them. Either way, we caused a lot of damage!”

“Slackjaw, I want you to scan every continuum you can for traces of their ship. I won’t be satisfied until Vargas is dead!”

“That might take time,” said Slackjaw, “but we should be able to track them down eventually. So far, I'm not picking up anything in any of the continuums used by space command.”

“Time,” Scrapper muttered. “That’s the ticket! Scan temporal space, Slackjaw!”

Meanwhile, on the space freighter, Commander Cruz was frantic. “Captain, five of our six continuators and our main fusion reactor have been damaged, we’re losing power fast, and we’re trapped in temporal space. We can’t break free!”

“What exactly is the problem?” Captain Vargas asked.

“Continuators make a breach in other continuums, that’s what allows us to travel through temporal space or other continuums. With one left functioning, we won’t be able to return to normal space, and with our reactor leak, we are running out of options!”

“Does anyone have a solution?” Captain Vargas asked.

“I’ve got one option,” said Diego, “but it depends on whether or not we can get the dissimilator cannon online and functional.”

“I have the access codes to get it working,” Vargas replied. “Why? What’s your plan?”

“I say we jettison the main reactor, hold it in place with a tractor beam, and with a second tractor beam, we jettison the dissimilator cannon, and use it to shrink the ship with us on board. If we use the deflector shields to contain the neutrino dissimilator cannon, it should shrink along with us. With our decreased mass, the larger reactor should have enough power to return us to normal space.”

“Has anything like this been tried in a situation like this before?” Captain Vargas asked.

“Anyone who has become trapped in temporal space like this has never made it out alive. If this plan works, once we return to normal space, we can send a radio signal to an outpost in a system the same number of light years away from Earth as the distance back through time that we’ve traveled. If our signal is received, help should arrive at the exact time we transmit it. This solution seems like the only way!”

“You’re on!” said Captain Vargas. “Let’s do it!”

After the main reactor was jettisoned and held in place by a tractor beam, the cargo bay was opened, and the neutrino dissimilator cannon was jettisoned. A second tractor beam was used to hold it in place. Captain Vargas gave the command codes to Corporal Lopez to activate the dissimilator cannon, then he gave the order to activate it. The entire freighter along with the neutrino dissimilator cannon had decreased in size, weight, volume, and mass instantly. The fusion reactor remained at normal size.

“We’re about nine-sixteenths of an inch tall, captain!” said Corporal Lopez.

“Pull the neutrino dissimilator cannon back into the cargo bay, and channel power from the reactor to return us to normal space, Commander Cruz!”

The miniaturized freighter and the normal sized fusion reactor were pulled back to normal space. Soon the blackness of temporal space was replaced by a view of the Earth on the view-screen.

“We did it!” said Sergeant Diego announced. “We’re back in normal space near Earth!”

“Uh, captain?” said Corporal Lopez. According to my astrometric scanners, the positions of the planets and the constellations indicate that we’re in the 21st century. Thursday, June 12th or Friday, June 13th, 2008, to be exact. The damaged continuators shot us precisely thirteen centuries and thirteen days into the past, but from our perception, the trip happened instantly. Luckily, the navigation computer kept us on a trajectory that would take us into Earth orbit.”

“That’s only the half of it!” said Commander Cruz. “We’ve entered Earth’s gravity well! We’re heading on a course that will take us down into a crash landing on the central coast of California!”

Meanwhile, back in the 34th century, Scrapper and his brothers were trying to figure out what happened to Captain Vargas.

"I picked up a neutrino signature in temporal space," said Slackjaw, "but not enough to warrant a full-size ship!"

"Do you think they're shifting back and forth between temporal space and another continuum?" Scrapper asked.

"No. There’s not enough neutrino emissions for that, I think they got blasted into oblivion.” said Slackjaw.

"I won’t be satisfied until I know Vargas is dead,” said Scrapper. “Scan temporal space and see if anything materialized there within the past couple of minutes."

Slackjaw did as Scrapper instructed. "Yep! I tracked a neutrino stream there! It has to be Vargas's freighter!"

Scrapper took a look at Slackjaw’s equipment. "Based on this trajectory, it looks like they are traveling backwards through time!”

"Let's follow them!" said Gator.

"Yeah!" said Slackjaw.

"If these read-outs are accurate," said Scrapper, "then the continuators of Vargas’s freighter were damaged, causing them to journey into the past. If they emerged from temporal space in this region of space, they would be near Earth in the early 21st century. We need to get into a trajectory in orbit around the sun and reach a third of light speed before we breach temporal space, then follow the sun’s gravitational signature into the past. We're going to have to use our cryo-tubes and go into suspended animation! It'll take us a long time to get to the same destination as Vargas, but when we get there, we'll be the same age we are now!"

“The cryo-tubes are ready, Scrapper!” said Slackjaw.

“How close can we get to the time Captain Vargas emerges into normal space?” Scrapper asked.

“We should arrive less than a week after they do,” Slackjaw replied, “maybe a day or two after if we’re lucky.”

“Take us into temporal space!” said Scrapper.

Back in the 21st century, Vargas and his crew had their own problems. “Diego!” Captain Vargas ordered, “Drain all on-board weapons batteries and divert all power into the remaining functional inertia dampeners! We’re in for a rough ride!”

"We now stand less than an inch tall!" said Diego. "Are you sure you want us to divert all power from our weapons systems? We'll be defenseless!"

"Don't argue with me, Diego!" shouted Vargas. "Just do it!"

"Yes sir!" Diego replied.

About that time in Bullet Bay, a small town on the central coast of California, a girl named Megan was excited because June 13th was her 13th birthday, and she was too restless to sleep. She got up to get a drink of water in the middle of the night and saw the miniaturized ship from her living room window, and assumed it was a meteorite. She didn’t suspect that what she saw and heard streaking across the sky and slamming into a local hillside would affect her destiny!

To Be Continued!

Chapter 4: Sunday, June 15th, 2008: Church

Megan was almost ready for church, when she got a call from Shelly.

“Can your mom pick me up to take me to church with you? My parents are out of town for the week and my brother is asleep.”

Megan asked her mom, and replied to Shelly that they would be right over. While Shelly was still on the phone, Megan told her that she wanted to ask the pastor if using time travel for monetary gain was against the Bible.

“If he asks why you want to know about this, just tell him you’re writing an essay about time travel,” said Shelly, “don’t tell him you really met time travelers so he doesn’t think you’re crazy!”

Later that morning, Megan sat on a pew with Shelly on one side, and her mom on the other. When the sermon was done, Megan said she wanted to ask the pastor a question. Shelly went with her to see what his answer would be.

“Remember what I told you over the phone about this,” said Shelly.

As people filed around the pastor and socialized with him, Megan approached him.

“Can I ask you a hypothetical question, pastor Bob?” Megan asked.

“Sure!” the pastor replied.

“Suppose someone had a way of traveling through time. Would it be wrong to use time travel for monetary gain?”

“According to second Kings chapter five,” the pastor replied, “the apprentice of the Prophet Elisha was punished for trying to use God’s power for monetary gain, and he was stricken with leprosy. We can assume from this that if time travel was possible, it is a gift from God and we can’t use it for monetary gain.”

“Thank you, pastor Bob!” said Megan.

After being dropped off at their homes, the girls changed clothing and met at Shelly’s house.

“I think we need to use the shrink ray to fight crime,” said Megan. “The pastor said we can’t use time travel for monetary gain.”

“Maybe we can use the future knowledge of the shrunken astronauts to know when criminals will strike!” said Shelly.

“That’s a good idea,” Megan replied.

“I think we should also have the shrunken astronauts build a statue of one of us!” said Shelly.

“That’s a good idea,” said Megan. “We would have to provide the material. What should we use?”

“I’ll ask my brother,” said Shelly. She went into the kitchen where Chris was eating a bowl of cereal. “Chris, if we know someone who will build a statue of me, what should we use for the building material?”

“That’s easy,” Chris replied, “plaster of Paris. I know where to buy it, I can have it here this afternoon if you give me the cash.”

Megan dug out some of her birthday money and gave it to Chris. “You can keep ten bucks of it as a fee, as long as you buy it and bring it here.”

“I know someone with a tool I need to use to mix it with water,” said Chris. “I’m going to have to build a wood frame to mix it and let it dry. It might take a couple of days before it dries out enough for someone to use a hammer and chisel on it.”

Before nightfall, the plaster was setting in the wood frame Chris had built with hammer and nails. Megan and Shelly admired it.

“Thanks Chris!” said Megan. 

“Who is going to build the statue?” Chris asked.

“Someone we know,” said Shelly, in a hurry to change the subject. Megan went home, and Shelly got ready for bed, because she had summer school the next day.

To Be Continued!

Chapter 8: The Hunt Is On!

Two of the shrunken men hid beneath Shelly's bed, standing behind the leg of the bed closest to the wall, at the corner of the room. They didn't know where the others were. Bobby was one of the two shrunken predators hiding behind the leg of the bed. The two shrunken men could see the shoes and lower legs of the three girls. Three of the other captives were hiding behind the dresser. From his vantage point, Bobby could see the unobscured figures of the three gluttonous goddesses, from the top of their heads to their shoes. The sixth captive was hiding behind the door of the closet, but Leila saw him and knelt down and retrieved him.

Leila stood with her back to the door of the bedroom, while Megan and Shelly faced her with their backs to the desk. The bed was on Megan's left, and the dresser was on her right. 

"I've captured one of them," said Leila. "One way or another, these six captives are going to find their way into my belly!" Leila turned and looked around the room. "Do you hear that, tiny ones? You might as well surrender to us now, because we're about to have a swallowing contest!"

Megan and Shelly laughed.

Leila addressed the captive in her hand. "Do you know where the other captives are?" Leila rubbed her bare stomach. "Don't you want me and my friends to have a good time? You can have the privilege of being swallowed by the Peruvian Princess! There are three cannibalistic conquerors waiting to devour all of you!"

"I think you're taking the wrong approach," Megan told Leila.

"How?" Leila asked. "If you were a shrunken man, wouldn't you want to get swallowed by a girl dressed up like me?"

"I wouldn't know, because I'm a girl," said Megan. "But we need to re-assure them that we aren't going to kill them. You probably have them thinking we're going to digest them! Telling them we're hungry hellions and other alliterative terms describing us as evil goddesses isn't going to convince them to surrender to us, it's gonna scare them!"

"Megan's right," said Shelly, as she grabbed the syrup of Ipecac on the desk. "Tiny ones, your mistresses have thought of your safety. We have a vomiting agent so we can puke you back up after we swallow you!"

"Not only that," said Leila, "but we sealed off all of the exits, so there's no escape!"

"Even if you get outside this house," said Shelly, "you would just get eaten by animals! At least with us, you're relatively safe."

Bobby weighed his options. He knew it might be riskier hiding from the towering teens, and if they tried to capture him, he could get squashed accidentally. He whispered to the guy hiding with him, "It might be safer to just surrender!"

Bobby came out of his hiding spot and waved his arms in the air.

"There's another one!" said Leila, the first to spot him. Leila knelt down and captured Bobby, while Shelly got down on her hands and knees and searched under the bed. She spotted Bobby's partner, and grabbed him.

"That makes three!" said Shelly. "Three more to go!"

Shelly stood up and gave the captive she just caught to Leila. "You hold onto them while I get a jar!"

Shelly raced into the kitchen and looked under the sink. She found an old Mason jar, so she plugged the drain and ran water with dish soap and cleaned the jar. When she was done, she dried it as best as she could, then returned to her bedroom.

"Put them inside this jar!" said Shelly, holding the jar aloft. Leila dumped the three captives inside.

"Can't we have a swallowing contest with just three of them?" Leila asked, licking her lips.

"We need to capture the other three," said Megan. "I don't want them to escape from us. Once we have them, we can swallow them as we please!"

"Look," said Leila to the unseen remaining captives who were still at large, "we don't have time for this, I know someone with a cat, and I'll bring it over here to catch you guys if you don't surrender to my hand immediately!"

One of the remaining three captives ran out from his hiding place, and Leila caught him. "He came out from under the dresser!" Leila shouted.

Megan and Shelly reached under the dresser, but the remaining two captives were still out of reach.

"I'll give you to the count of thirty to come out," said Leila. "If you don't, and we capture you, I really will digest you!"

As Leila began counting down, the remaining two captives emerged before she reached ten. Leila knelt down and captured them, then stood up and dropped them into the Mason jar with the others.

Megan took out the loaded dice from her backpack, and her stopwatch.

"I think we should toss dice to see who goes first," said Megan, as she shook the dice around in her cupped hands. "Whoever gets 7 or 11 wins!" 

Megan tossed the dice, and got 11, a five and a six. Megan scooped up the dice, then did a switch, replacing the loaded dice with regular dice, and handed them to Leila. The regular dice looked just like the loaded dice.

Leila shook the dice, and said, "7 or 11?"

"Yeah," said Megan.

Leila tossed the dice, and got 7, a five and a two. "It looks like I got 7!"

"That can't be possible!" said Megan, looking at the dice. After looking them over, she saw that they were the regular dice. Leila had just gotten lucky.

"What are you so concerned about?" Leila asked. "Are you using trick dice?"

Leila checked Megan's other hand, and found the loaded dice.

"Hey!" said Leila. "You cheated, these are fake dice! That means I get to go first!"

Megan and Shelly backed up from Leila.

"Hey, I'm not going to beat you up, I wouldn't pick a fight with a girl who has a shrink ray gun!"

"Just let her go first, Megan!" said Shelly. "I'll time her on the stopwatch. I have a pad of paper and a pen to keep track of our scores." 

Holly took the stopwatch while Megan took out a CD player. "Can I hook these up to your speakers? Megan asked.

"Sure," Shelly replied. 

Megan turned on the music, it was Judas Priest's Defenders of the Faith album, and the song "Eat me alive" came on.

Leila took the six captives in her hand, and told Shelly to start the stopwatch. Shelly pressed the button that started the stopwatch, and said, "Go!"

Leila took took two of the captives and tossed them back in her mouth. She swallowed them, then grabbed two more from the four remaining captives in her left hand, and tossed them into her mouth and swallowed. She did the same with the remaining two, and swallowed. She threw her arms up to symbolize victory, and shouted, "Time!"

Shelly pressed the button that stopped the stopwatch. "Twenty-eight seconds! Megan, you can go next, I'll time you."

Megan took the syrup of Ipecac and gave it to Leila. "This will make you vomit."

"I'm not drinking that!" said Leila.

"We had an agreement," said Megan. "Each one of us swallows the captives, then pukes them up for the other girls to swallow!"

"Why can't we just get more of them?" Leila asked.

"They're immortal," said Megan. "They can't die in your stomach, they'll just swim around in there, doing who knows what!"

"Okay, you convinced me!" said Leila. "Give me that stuff!"

Leila took the syrup of Ipecac and took the cap off. She took a swig. Holly had a large plastic bowl for her to vomit into. Within a minute, Leila vomited, and all six captives fell into the bowl, along with a large quantity of vomit.

"Shelly can you go rinse them off?" Megan asked.

Shelly took the bowl to the kitchen. "So what's the story with this shrink ray device of yours?" Leila asked.

"Astronauts from the year 3321 got attacked by space pirates while hauling a new miniaturization prototype through the asteroid belt," said Megan. "They got caught in a temporal flux pattern, so they were stuck in temporal space. They jettisoned their reactor, and used the shrink ray to shrink their space ship, themselves, and the shrink ray so their decreased mass would be small enough for the normal sized reactor to get them back to normal space. Are you with me so far?"

Leila nodded her head, indicating that she understood.

Megan continued: "They crash-landed not far from here, and I took Shelly with me to go look, thinking it was a meteorite. We found the shrunken space freighter, Shelly captured the shrunken astronauts, and I retrieved the shrink ray gun. The shrunken astronauts programmed the shrink ray so it will only work when it detects my unique chromosome pattern."

"What happened to the space pirates?" Leila asked.

"One of them used a mind control device on my summer school teacher, and took his place. I have to attend class tomorrow, and interact with him."

"If he's after the shrink ray, you should hide it somewhere." said Leila. "Don't take it to school with you."

Shelly returned with the plastic bowl, which was now clean, and the six rinsed off captives.

"It's your turn, Megan!" said Shelly, handing her the six captives.

Megan held the captives in her left hand, while Shelly got ready with the stopwatch.

"Ready?" Holly asked, and after Megan nodded, Shelly pressed the button and said, "Go!"

Megan tossed three captives at a time into her mouth, and swallowed them in one gulp. She tossed the other three, and swallowed them, as well. Megan raised her arms in victory, as Leila had done.

"I'm done!" Megan shouted, and Shelly pressed the stop button.

"Thirteen seconds, a new record!" said Shelly.

Leila handed her the syrup of Ipecac. Megan took a swallow, and a minute later puked into the large bowl. All six captives were swimming around in her vomit.

"Okay Shelly,” said Megan, "it's your turn!"

"Let me clean off the captives first," said Shelly. Megan took the stopwatch from her.

When Shelly returned with the clean bowl and captives, Megan timed her and she beat Leila's time, but lost to Megan.

"I'm the champion!" said Megan. "I have to go home soon, Leila says I should leave the shrink ray here since I will be seeing that space pirate at school tomorrow."

"Good idea," said Shelly.

Meanwhile, in Shelly’s garage, Captain Vargas and his shrunken crew members were making progress.

"We've got the main circuits functioning," said Sergeant Diego. "Now we just need to figure out what to do from here on out."

"The way I see it," said Captain Vargas, "we can get ourselves and the shrink ray weapon back to normal size, or fix the communications system and send a signal to the 34th century, and hope that someone comes back for us."

"We can't do both," said Sergeant Diego, "so which do you want us to concentrate on?"

Captain Vargas thought about it, then said, "It makes more sense to repair the communications system and transmit a signal to the future. We can't let Megan or her friends know what we're up to, or they might try to stop us."

Just then, the three girls entered the garage. "How are you doing?" Megan asked.

"We got our equipment working," Captain Vargas replied. "Under normal conditions, miniaturized electrical or electronic devices don't function. The equipment we're using has been specially adapted to still function when miniaturized."

Megan turned toward Shelly. "I'll leave all the captives here with you, don't swallow them!"

"See you at school tomorrow, Megan!" said Shelly.

When Megan returned home, her mother had made dinner. 

"I made your favorite," said Margaret, "organic mac and cheese with ground turkey and Marinara sauce."

"Mom, that's my favorite regular food. I like pizza and spaghetti the most!"

Megan ate two helpings of food, and her mother noticed.

"I've never seen you this hungry before, Megan!" said Margaret.

"This is really good!" said Megan. "I must've worked up an appetite at Shelly’s!”

Megan smiled, not wanting to admit that she had vomited her lunch up at Shelly’s house after swallowing shrunken captives.

To Be Continued!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Scrapper asked Megan and Shelly to stay after class to look over the rough drafts of their essays. When all of the other students were gone, he addressed them.

“Let’s not play games with each other,” Scrapper began. “I know you have a device I want, and you know I know. The sooner you give it back, the sooner I can restore the mind of your real teacher with my memory suppressor and return to my own century.”

What would you do with that technology?” Megan asked. “Would you make the world a better place?”

“In my era,” Scrapper replied, “we’re not concerned with the world, we’re in the process of colonizing the galaxy! By the way, where is the shrink ray gun?”

“A friend has it for safe keeping!” Megan replied. She was hoping Scrapper wouldn’t look in her backpack and find it.

Meanwhile, Margaret had left work early to pick Megan up from school. She drove to the junior high school to check on her daughter’s attendance. She entered the office and the receptionist called Scrapper to the office. Shelly grabbed a flash drive from Scrapper’s satchel when he left the classroom, and stuck it in her bra.

While Margaret waited for Scrapper, a much older man who worked in the office tried to ask her out to dinner. He was about a generation older than Margaret, but still thought of himself as a player.

Margaret replied, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t date people who were present at the signing of the Magna Carta.”

He persisted, mentioning various restaurants in the area he could take her to. Scrapper arrived.

“Mr. Scrapper and I are dating. But lotsa luck!”

Margaret turned her attention to Scrapper. “I’m going to take Megan to a warehouse store to buy a lot of ice cream for Friday night. I’m also getting about a dozen two liters of root beer. So are we still on for Friday night?”

“Yes, I’d like to learn more about you!” Scrapper replied.

Megan met up with her mom with her two books in the backpack, and they went to a supermarket to get the root beer. Afterwards, they drove to the warehouse store, where they bought ice cream for Friday night. They had to get their receipt checked and Megan’s backpack checked at the door. Margaret mentioned that they aren’t thieves. 

The woman checked Megan’s backpack and saw the shrink ray and the two books Scrapper had given her.

“What is this?” The woman asked, indicating the shrink ray gun.

“It’s a toy shrink ray gun,” Megan asked.

“I doubt a 13 year old girl is a thief,” said Margaret.

“There was a crime ring operating at this store,” the door checker explained, “where a cashier and door checker allowed a woman to take expensive items she hadn’t paid for.“

Margaret and Megan exited the store with their grocery cart full of groceries. 

“Mom,” said Megan, “I’m embarrassed because that woman is Paisley Pryor’s mom, and Paisley is the most popular girl at my junior high school. Her brother is Sammy Pryor, the cutest boy in school.”

“Does Sammy have any prior convictions for being cute?” Margaret asked. 

The joke went over Megan’s head.

“Who gave you the toy shrink ray gun?” Margaret asked.

“Shelly’s brother,” Megan replied.

“A shrink ray gun seems more like something a boy would have,” Margaret replied. “I remember a show when I was young about people traveling through time with a brass device that looked like a pocket watch, and I think a replica of that would be cooler than a shrink ray gun.”

After they returned home, Megan helped put the root beer in the spare fridge and the numerous gallons of ice cream in the spare freezer in the garage.

Later that afternoon, Megan was at Shelly’s that afternoon and showed her the schematics for a transtator on her laptop, which was on the flash drive she took from Scrapper. She took screenshots of all the schematics and promised to return the flash drive at school the next day.

“You’re good at science and math, can you figure out what this thing does?” Shelly asked Megan.

After looking through the various schematics, Megan said, “It looks like some kind of dimensional inverter. It amplifies power, so a 9 volt battery could power an entire city for a week!”

Shelly printed out the schematics on her printer.

“How are the bank robbers doing?” Megan asked.

“They won’t come out of their getaway car,” said Shelly, “and since they’re immortal, they don’t need food, water or to use the bathroom, so they can stay in there indefinitely. I think they’re freaked out!”

Megan smiled. “It’s hard to feel sorry for them. I’m still a little shook up from the robbery yesterday, those bank workers are probably going to need therapy!”

To Be Continued!