"This feels so wrong ..." a distraught Lexi whimpered from the backseat of Leah's Toyota as the group ; now accompanied by Josh pull up to the curb of Aztek Parts and More. The building is still dark and the CLOSED sign is still plastered over the front door, although there is ONE notable change. There's now a dark blue car parked where there wasn't one before.
"You wanna keep shrinking and growing all the time?" Leah asked, trying to show her best friend some tough love, as if she had ever been in such a situation before herself.
"I know ... no... not really..." Lexi frowned, rubbing her hand a bit to calm her nerves. She wasn't sure at this point what was causing her "size spasms" but she figured keeping a calm head could only help things as Josh gave her a supportive look, sitting next to her.
"Don't worry Lex, we'll figure this out" he said sincerely as Leah slowly stopped the car.
"Alright Mara... you're up" Leah said, unlocking the doors with a hefty click. Mara gave an acknowledging nod, although Leah would prompt her to stop before fully making it out of the vehicle, "hold on ... I have to know ... how DO these teleportation powers work? Like do you just ... think about it and you poof to China or something?"
"It's uh ... kinda situational?" Mara answered, not seeming sure herself, "and fairly limited too ... oh and a couple times I poofed without my clothes so ... look away if you're not into that kind of thing..."
"Pretty sure at least 2 of the 3 of us are..." Leah sighed with a chuckle, resting her head on the steering wheel, "we know LEXI is, at least!"
"Can we just ... ugh??" Lexi sighed, looking flustered as she just peered down at the floor of the back seat.
The 3 remaining occupants of Leah's car would watch as Mara, the helpful bubbly but not very stealthy young elf stepped up to the door, leaned into it a bit and then just stood there for a moment. They watched as she pulled on the handle and saw the door, to their surprise, open right up.
"Oh, she's good..." Josh remarked.
Mara gave the rest of her friends a dopey shrug before stepping back up to the car.
"It's uh ... it's open" Mara said, very matter of factly.
"It ... shouldn't be ..." Lexi said, sounding a bit worried. "Unless Trevor's back ..."
It wasn't until this point that Lexi finally noticed the dark blue car. She wasn't 100% positive but it looked familiar ... she could swear seeing a similar kind parked outside the Shrink Shack and again at the very same Aztek store one day when she came by to see Mr. Hilfmann. Something about this didn't sit well but at least Lexi could take some solace in the fact that they weren't technically breaking and entering if the door was open.
Lexi peered over to see Josh making a call.
"What are you doing?" she asked
"Calling Trevor again ..." Josh replied, "...still no answer. So I'm not sure he's back from ... whereever he went...."
"Ugh, I just hope he's okay ..." Lexi groaned, her head in her hands.
"I hope YOU'RE okay..." Leah said supportively, "I get that you want to help him but ... you gotta take care of you first ..."
Lexi nodded but still felt a pit in her stomach. Now wasn't the time to discuss what was on her mind though. She followed Josh and Leah as they made their way out of the car and up to the entrance of the storefront, very carefully opening it only enough to slip through and quietly sliding it shut.
The store was empty and eerily quiet -- only dull traces of flourescent light flickered to fill in some of the otherwise darkened area. Even the glass cases that held various laptops and computer components were dim, if not off entirely. It was almost as if the store hadn't been in business for weeks.
"I don't like this ..." Lexi whispered to Leah who was beside her.
Josh took a cautious step forward, each minute movement seeming to make some sort of noise even as he tread carefully. Finally, when he had stopped the whole group also took note of a very slight sound. It almost sounded like the pitter patter of feet across a field of plastic. It, in fact sounded like somebody typing.
Rather than talking aloud and further exposing themselves, Josh gave the ladies a signal to follow him as they crouched a bit and slid behind the counter.
Leah peeked over at Lexi, not wanting to talk but instead mimed using her hands, first pointing to the door that seperated them from where Trevor's workshop would be and then taking both her hands, holding them a fair distance apart and then compressing them, before pointing to Lexi and then back at the door. Lexi nodded, although she didn't look super confident. Still, it was perhaps their only chance to be stealthy and see what was going on.
Leah leaned down a bit more, as the gang were all down pretty close to the floor, since a picture window behind the counter could potentially get them spotted if there was indeed an intruder on the other side of said door. Leah carefully cracked the door open enough so that Lexi, once tiny, could slip inside.
Lexi took a deep breath and found it surprisingly easy to shrink this time, although her main worry now was if she could grow back. For the most part, it seemed like she could trigger shrinking if she NEEDED to, but it also occurred at times she didn't want to and growing didn't always seem to happen on its own.
For now though, Lexi scampered through the slight opening provided and kept her back pressed to the dark concrete wall as she slid very carefully with each foot taking a small stride towards the threshold which would open up into the laboratory of Trevor Hilfmann. Without even needing to get much closer, Lexi could hear the sound of keystrokes getting louder among other more conspicuous noises. Somebody was definitely inside but Lexi hesitated to call out Trevor's name, especially with no evidence of his car or exact whereabouts.
Just outside the door, Leah gave Mara a worried look and wanted to give the red haired elf similar instructions to teleport and help Lexi without verbally communicating as much. This was admittedly harder to do but Leah tried anyway, pointing to Mara, then pointing to the door again. She then held both her hands by her mouth and mouthed a "poof" with a bursting motion to simulate vanishing.
Mara nodded and then took a single stick of gum out of her pocket, holding it out to Leah as if she were about to put a dollar bill in her hand. Leah would've facepalmed if not for the sound it would make.
The tiny stealthy Lexi continued to scoot herself closer to the laboratory, not quite sure what she would see but she did indeed make out a large (well everybody was large to her at the moment) female figure who was only slightly obscured by the darkness. She wasn't able to completely make out the face despite a flickering computer screen which illuminated it but she swore the girl looked a lot like Aeris ... the digital security expert Trevor had recently hired.
"...I knew there was something about her I didn't like ..." Lexi thought to herself before carefully scampering back towards the door.
In her haste, Lexi wasn't careful enough to avoid a scrap of plastic, a wayward 'A' key from a busted keyboard that found itself among the strewn about scrap that usually littered the ground in this back hallway. Normally this wouldn't be a factor but it certainly was an audible noise. Then again, it was completely possible that the sneaky young woman who was using one of Trevor's computers wouldn't notice such a miniscule noise when on a mission of her own. If Lexi were lucky, the woman in the office wouldn't notice the tiny one at all.
But then again, luck was never Lexi's thing...
Lexi froze as a small pinlight flashed on her, the result of a penlight being pointed at her by none other than the blue haired hacker herself, Aeris. The resulting shock caused Lexi to snap out of her size as she warped back to normal, looking up and gulping as she lay on the ground.
"Just so you know ..." the mechanically cold voice proclaimed, her voice practically echoing off the concrete, "...you're all about as stealth-like as a clydesdale..."
"What IS a clydesdale anyhow?" an inquisitive Mara would ask, entering slowly and stepping over Lexi on the ground. Lexi simply facepalmed as Leah and Josh walked in, both concerned to confront the hacker.
____________________
"Ah yes .... careful ... careful ... and ... here we are!" the snarky mad scientist chortled softly as he watched his drone make its way very carefully down a long ventilation shaft that couldn't have been much wider than the drone itself.
Like a helicopter depositing its cargo, the drone detached its underside and left in its wake a purple car before taking off slowly back up the tube.
Giovanni watched in astonishment as Max simply turned to tout his latest achievement.
"You see? It is with YOUR help, Dr. Giovanni ..." Max explained, "that this was possible! I was able to trace the location of this car ... this ... MONSTROSITY! and FINALLY capture..."
"Um.. Doctor?" Giovanni asked, a bit concerned as he watched an angry looking blonde woman emerge from the vehicle
"Not now, Giovanni, you will have your chance..." Dr. Max chuckled, "You know I like to be doing the gloating from time to time..."
"Uh... gloat away..." Giovanni said, a bit of a headache creeping up on him which prevented any further protest from the exhausted scientist.
"As I was saying ... I have already succeeded in making the roads safer by taking this THING off of them and NOW I have finally seized the miniscule menace ... my tiny adversary... and I am betting she STILL has some wisecracks up her sleeve, no?? So tell me then, Miss Alexis ... what do you have to say for your --?"
Max would turn swiftly to view the car and it's now expelled passenger in the containment chamber only to be met with the derisive glare by the young woman formerly known as Rachel Rutschmann.
"...no... no no no... this cannot be!" Max exclaimed, gesturing towards Sugar Rush and looking at Giovanni with a pouty look, "THIS is not the SHRINKING GIRL!"
"...that's what I was trying to tell you, Max..." Giovanni sighed.
Max grabbed hold of what appeared to be a small radio, which allowed him to inject his voice into the small metallic holding chamber for those unfortunate enough to hear it.
"You are NOT the ShrinkGirl ... and yet you are still ... a shrunk GIRL..." Max announced, his rousing speech not exactly rehearsed to that point.
"And you're the science guy here?" Sugar Rush grunted. At first she had been scared (and still was) but the fact that the giant so-called genius couldn't even tell her apart from Lexi had her a bit less frightened of the potential threat he posed, even as her eyes darted every which way to see a possible weakness in the containment chamber.
Giovanni had a curious peer around Dr. Max's shoulder, not focusing on the girl but rather the car. A shiny purple vehicle with odd jagged shapes to its design that one wouldn't normally see from cars of THIS dimension.
"Okay ... okay ..." Max exhaled, on his own train of thought as he walked and talked in run-on sentences, "so this is not the main target ... but we still have the car ... "
"Does he always talk to himself?" Rush interjected rudely, still able to hear him as he had left the radio on.
"I am not TALKING to you ... little ... blonde robot girl..." Max sputtered, before turning off the radio and turning to Giovanni so that he would have the "honor" of hearing the ramble.
"Um... Max... that car ... do you know a lot about it?" Giovanni asked
"I only know it is the vehicle of that ShrinkGirl and ..." Max explained, shortly thereafter cut off by Giovanni.
"Yeah ... I ... I recognize it ... or at least ... the design of it..." Dr. Giovanni said. "As you know ... I spent a great deal of time in another version of this same city ... while there, I encountered another ... Alexis Cole... who went by ShrinkGirl ... she helped me when my first dimensional machine went awry ... saved me from some crystal beasts..."
"Crystal ... beasts?" Max asked, a bit intrigued
"That was back then ..." Giovanni sighed, "she warned me not to try it again ... but of course, I'm a stubborn scientist ... and I ended up eventually warping back here to this version of Minitropolis ... with very limited resources or capability to continue my research ..."
"Uh-huh...." Dr Max said, "No offense Giovanni but you have already told me most of these things before ... outside of the crystal beasts..."
"Well, as you remember you saved me from one of them that night you found me in the forest ..." Dr. Giovanni said, "I was somehow able to open the rift to that city again ..."
"And which city is this?" Dr. Max asked
"I don't know its exact name ... but this horrible knight in black armor came out the portal at the same time ... that's when I fled my lab ... but that vehicle ... I swear it bears a lot of the same stylings as what I saw in the brief glimpse I had inside that portal ... and ... Max, what are you doing?"
"Hmm? Oh nothing..." Max said with a strong hint of false innocence in his tone. On his phone he was texting himself.
"Note to self : run ShrinkGirl Simulator new version later with 'Crystal Beasts'"
_____________
The tense standoff in Aztek's back room was just getting started as the snarky Aeris stood before Lexi, Mara, Leah and Josh who cautiously slid themselves into the laboratory. A quick cursory glance showed that everything was still where it had been. The only thing that had been touched was literally the desktop computer that Aeris had comandeered for the time being.
What the quartet didn't know is that Aeris had a round puck like device in her hand that she had taken from under the desk. She discreetly slipped it into the pocket of her leather pants as she never broke eye contact with the trepidatious Lexi.
"I know you ... you're that digital security chick ..." Lexi said, "How did you even get in here?"
"There's a key under the welcome mat" Aeris chirped back
"Wait really?" Lexi asked
"No not really!" Aeris chuckled, "Seriously, ... you're a bit too naive sometimes to be a superhero, Lexi ... or should I say ... ShrinkGirl?"
"So is this part of your security service too? A free break in with every --??" Lexi began the heroic banter right on schedule but her body wouldn't allow her to finish it as she shrank instead, causing Aeris to inject just a small dose of laughter into the situation.
"I'm sorry, could you ... speak up hon?" Aeris asked, while giving the others a wry look, "Look, I'm not gonna lie... is this a tad awkward? Yes... is this how I saw this going? No ..."
"Then why are you --?" Lexi squeaked, before realizing how ridiculous she looked. She groaned and gave Leah a reluctant look upwards. Always happy to 'lend a hand', Leah did so and picked up her best friend, giving her a platform from which to speak on, "Why are you here?"
Aeris tilted her head and paused. She was almost tempted to answer the question but rather her mind drifted as she connected some dots from earlier in that week.
"It was you, wasn't it?" Aeris asked smugly, sizing up her diminuitive cohort, "You were the waitress at the Shrink Shack?"
"The ... the what?" Lexi eeped, before looking back at Leah, "Uh... think I'm about to grow again, so you may wanna..."
Leah nodded as she hastily placed Lexi back down and watched her shoot up like a weed, back to 5 foot 4, her head spinning like a top after yet another sudden size change.
"Huh, that would explain quite a bit..." Aeris said, muttering just a bit but still loud enough for the others to hear. "Still, it's interesting seeing it in person..."
"Will you start making sense, please?" Lexi said, taking a defiant step forward.
"You're the one who's the anomaly here, darling..." Aeris said, in a fairly condescending tone. "Everybody in the city seems to want their hands on you in one way or another ..."
"Yeah ... tell me something I don't know ..." Lexi replied, in a surprisingly glum tone. Sure it was flattering to be "valued" by some or even be seen as a hero by others, but between that and her current ordeal, the pressure was becoming utterly flattening towards her.
"Look ... I can't pretend to know what you're going through ..." Aeris said, "nobody can seem to explain it ... even your science guy Dr. Hilfmann and ... he knows his stuff admittedly..."
"Where is he? What did you do to him?" Lexi sneered a bit, a noticable spark in her hair that seemed to travel down a strand like a tiny current.
"I couldn't tell you ..." Aeris said with a very frank shrug, "Doc is off the grid and has been since earlier today ... no doubt in conjunction with that drone attack ... say you were involved in that too, right?"
"I wasn't INVOLVED in it..." Lexi eeped, her anger causing her to shrink again before springing right back up, as she now bore an exhausted look on her face, "...look I just ... want my life back ... I don't want crazy robots following me... I don't want to not know what size I'll wake up in the morning at ..."
Even Aeris bore a small frown of support for the sincere superheroine.
"Unfortunately Alexis ... that's the life you've fallen into... whether you chose it or not..." Aeris said with a nod, her hands being kept pretty close to her vest, literally the whole time as she plotted an escape route in case things went south. "Although I will say, based on what I know about Project Delta, and how secretive Enormo Enterprises IS about their projects ... I still find it highly improbable that you were selected to be in the experiment..."
After another long and seemingly endlessly awkward pause, Lexi threw her hands down in disgust, repeating the alibi that pretty much summed up her whole existence as ShrinkGirl to this point.
"...I thought it was a changing room" Lexi sighed
"Huh. Not quite the noble origins I suspected but ... good to know..." Aeris said in a mechanical manner as she seized a small PDA (seriously, people still use those) and began to tap on it, as if adding notes to something.
"Anything else I can give you to help author my memoirs?" Lexi asked sarcastically as her friends stood behind her, offering a wall of resistance if needed.
"Oh I have plenty of questions, don't get me wrong ... and my boss does too... perhaps you've heard of him ... Dr. Scott Travis....?" Aeris said
"I ... I gotta be honest with you ... I got too many doctors in my life as it is right now,..." Lexi groaned
"Oh I've heard of him!" Josh said, jumping in. "He's behind that new CyberTek company that's starting up..."
"Correction. We've already STARTED UP." Aeris said with a smirk, "and we're well on our way to some REALLY impressive tech ... but that's neither here nor there"
"So is that what this is about?" Lexi asked "You come here to steal more of Trevor's technology?"
"If I had wanted to do that, I'd do it already" Aeris said, "But no. Just like everyone else, I want to learn more about the Delta Project ... otherwise known as YOU. I want to know what makes you tick, why you can do what you do and how you fared so much better than the other subjects..."
"Other ... subjects?" Lexi asked, curiously.
"Oh, you really didn't know, did you?" Aeris asked, "not surprising ... I will say, meeting you in person has been both intriguing and ... disappointing"
"I'm ... sorry?" Lexi responded, a bit confused herself.
"Well it's nice to put a face to the name" Aeris said, matter of factly as usual as she backed away from the computer she had mostly been facing the whole time. "and from how I've seen you characterized on the news and all, I never thought you to be the science type or even someone who could design all those gadgets you have ... hell, your car alone is a mechanical marvel ... that had to have been a custom made..."
"Oh that's a fun story!" Josh interjected, "She got it from another dimension but I made the modifications to make it ..."
Leah tapped Josh on the shoulder as if to get him to cool his jets.
"Oh. Sorry ... it's just ... she asked about it..." Josh shrugged
"Point being... what you can do is remarkable..." Aeris said, a tone of reluctant applause in her voice before she twisted the verbal knife, "You however ... are not"
"Uh... and what's that suppose to mean?" Lexi asked, brow now furrowed with anger
"Careful there, short stack... don't blow that pretty lid of yours again or ... we've all seen what happens ..." Aeris said with a bit of an added tease in her voice. "All I mean is ... you wear a pretty set of purple tights ... you drive around in some super car ... to this point you've made yourself look VERY convincing as a hero, I'll give you that. But most, if not everything you have is a happy accident ... I've had to work myself up to be where I am..."
"And where's that? A criminal?" Lexi sneered
"I'll admit ... there were some shady days..." Aeris shrugged, "truth be told, I'm still collected paychecks from the chaos crew while I attempt to go legitimate with CyberTek"
"So you're Chaos Crew ... figures..." Lexi growled
"FORMER Chaos Crew .. okay so maybe not so former but on my way out ... two weeks notice sort of thing?? It's a gray area ..." Aeris shrugged, "all I know is, I want to be on the winning side when the shit goes down"
"And what shit would that be?" Lexi asked
"Look ... Alexis ... you seem nice, you do..." Aeris said, even while her tone remained cold. Truth be told, she was focusing more on her next step than the one she was currently on, "At one point I would've asked you to come to CyberTek. I know my boss would love to study you ... heck, he'd much prefer that than what we've had to do to try and comandeer your little friend Rachel Rutschmann"
"The fuck are you talking about?" Lexi lurched forward a bit, only to be stopped by a tazer that Aeris quickly reached for, as it sparked painfully close to her face.
Aeris' reflexes were indeed amazing as she showed restraint to not just jab the sparking weapon into Lexi's body despite their close proximity.
"One step more and who knows what this'll do to you..." Aeris said with a smirk, "I've studied enough of Trevor and Travis' work to know that electric polarity plays some key role in whatever you got going on there ..."
Lexi reluctantly yieled but still wanted answers.
"So what about Rachel? Why do you want her?" Lexi asked
"Lexi ... Lexi Lexi Lexi ..." Aeris said with a half smile and another of her indifferent shrugs for good measure, "Do you think you were or will be the only 'ShrinkGirl' there ever is? There were test subjects before you at Enormo ... it was covered up ... they ... well, let's just say they didn't react as well as you did. Similarly, there will be cases AFTER you. Now that the science community at large has seen that what you ARE is possible, it's never going to stop..."
Lexi sighed and just continued to listen with ever increasing dread at that statement.
"Now, it's fairly common knowledge that Rachel Rutschmann was not the result of an Enormo Experiment but rather ... the offspring of one ..." Aeris stated, "in laymans terms... you shrunk her ... but if we could somehow study how you did that and reverse engineer it ..."
"...you want to make more ShrinkGirls..." Lexi said, finally realizing the connection.
"It's not all about you, but yes ..." Aeris said, hand on her hip as she had the tazer in hand but currently held it at a greater distance. "And whether it's CyberTek or Enormo or some other group or groups ... SOMEBODY is going to crack the code. Trevor is the only one who's not on either side that seems to know a thing or two about this and you really SHOULD look into his files on the Delta Project ... oh wait you can't ... I stole them..."
"You bitch --!!" Lexi finally flinched and pushed forward as her emotions betrayed her.
Despite Leah briefly trying to hold the lunging brunette back, her attempts were fruitless as Aeris predictably whipped the overly eager ShrinkGirl with her tazer on a fairly high setting causing her to wince and fall to the ground in pain.
"LEXI!!" Leah screamed, watching her best friends body having a severe reaction as she sparked and crackled, before shrinking to the ground and then growing again, only to shrink some more. Leah stood and looked back at the others shaking her head. "I'm... I'm afraid to even touch her while she's like this... I ... I don't know what to do ..."
"Well I do!" Aeris smirked, offering the crew a mocking salute, "Would love to say it's a pleasure but ..."
Without even finishing that sentence, Aeris dodged and weaved around Leah who was on her knees, too distraught to even be an obstacle. Josh tried to tackle the incoming Agent of Chaos but he was simply juked to the left like a ragdoll defender.
Mara would look the least ready for an offensive manuever but surprisingly she swung her fist hard and connected with Aeris' jaw, staggering the young woman for just a moment. Even Aeris had to pause as she rubbed her cheek.
"Huh. That was a lucky shot" Aeris winced
"Yeah I get that a lot..." Mara giggled but the giggles wouldn't last long as Aeris would jab the bubbly elf girl with the tazer as well before slipping out the front door and making a beeline for her getaway vehicle.
The trio of Lexi's friends, even the hobbled Mara would've made an effort to catch up but they were too concerned with Lexi who lay on the ground, flinching and crying as she continued changing sizes involuntarily.
"Lexi....LEXI!!" Leah cried, "Please... stay with us!"
______________________
Dr. Giovanni Guillardo found himself in the deep dark lab underneath Enormo's main operating floors. It was there his portal inducer was in semi-functional condition after having produced a fairly encouraging first test. At the moment though, the Doctor found himself more fascinated with the purple car of Quartzarian origin (even if he didn't know the name of the dimension)
Even more curious was the tiny blonde woman with the metallic armor on. Feeling stared at, Sugar Rush simply sneered at the inquisitive scientist.
"What do YOU want, old man?" Rush squeaked, blasting the clear sleek glass with what appeared to be powdered sugar. It was actually a fairly acidic compound but it did little to erode the material which kept her trapped with only a toy sized vehicle that she could potentially make a getaway with if there were anywhere to possibly drive it to.
While sympathetic to the young woman's plight, Giovanni knew bette than to mess with what was foreign technology and a very angry (understandably so) woman with an arm cannon. Even if she was figurine sized, he knew better than to poke the bear, so to speak.
Instead he noticed some modules on the side of the containment chamber. They were monitoring energy levels almost like a heart rate, with momentary spikes being shown now and then.
Giovanni's main specialty was in interdimensional study and entropic science (not the easiest field to break into) but he had studied up on Max's "Project Delta" and knew a bit of the science behind the size manipulation that his company had worked on. He could see some of the same energy signatures emerging from the shrunken woman as that of Lexi when Dr. Max had been trying to track her.
Curious, the elder Doctor typed in some parameters on the adjacent keyboard and hit ENTER, beginning a spectral energy scan analysis.
A loud stirring sound startled Sugar Rush who looked up with a bit of dread as the metallic floor underneath her gave off a loud tremor and she was nearly knocked off her feet. She looked out at the "giant doctor" with a sense of worry.
"H-Hey ... c'mon Gramps... I was only kidding around..." Rush squeaked, looking around as a green laser started to come down on her as if she were in a giant copying machine. She feared for her life momentarily thinking maybe she was about to be trash compacted but it only turned out to be a scanning laser that passed up and down before fading away. It was still an unsettling moment to say the least.
While Rush shook herself off from the harrowing experience, Dr. Giovanni took careful note of the results of the scan, finding the energy readings eerily similar to something else he had encountered. It was both a good sign and a bit troubling and definitely worth reporting to Doctor Max.
With that, Giovanni was off to find his colleague, while Rush pensively paced the prison, looking for any sign of escape.
_______________
It was nearly closing time at Kekse Cookies as a weary Justin Wright was wrapping up for the day. It hadn't been a terribly trying shift, but there's only so much he could get into working at a cookie shop. It wasn't exactly where he saw himself, but his dad was able to get him the job pretty easily and a summer job was a summer job.
It was just about time to lock up when Justin heard a strange noise coming from behind the kitchen. He expected to find their head chef (or one of them) Melissa in the back room but it was empty. The clattering seemed to be emanating from somewhere deeper in the building. Perhaps the basement?
Hearing more strange creaking and then a loud CRASH, Justin simply had to make sure everything was okay. He turned back briefly to make sure no customers were in the main lobby before peeking his head in the basement, seeing only a silhoutte and a large chunk of mangled machinery.
"Hey!" Justin said, instantly regretting it as the man delivering the machinery gave him an annoyed look.
Rather than continue the confrontation though, the man bolted through a back door that wasn't suppose to be accessible to the public. Justin made his way slowly down the stairs, not sure what he would find, walking around the wrecked machinery and peeking out the door to see the man was already gone, speeding off in a 1980's Fiero.
Justin let out an exhausted sigh and then peered back at what was dumped off.
If this were a break-in, he wasn't sure what the criminal was trying to steal and instead of stealing, he had actually put something into the storage closet, or at least would have, had he not been caught.
Justin briefly studied the machinery, finding it too eerily familiar to technology he had seen as concept sketches on his dad's desk. He had no doubt it was Enormo Enterprises tech, even in its current ruined state. It was a drone that was a little over the size of a car's engine block and it was in pieces. Why would somebody try to stash it there though?
On the other end of a phone call, the same exact question was being postulated, albeit in a much less friendly manner.
"Why the hell would you try to stash it there?!" an irate Doctor Maximillian shouted to the man on the phone piloting his Fiero at a high speed as he escaped the campus. "And why would you do so during BUSINESS HOURS?!"
"I didn't know the shop was still open ..." the gangly man replied. He was a fairly generic looking thug in a white tank top with a tan complexion and greasy black hair. He went by the name of Skaggs. He wasn't the best and brightest of the Chaos Crew but beggars can't be choosers.
"It's 5 in the afternoon, of COURSE the shop is still being open! At least for one more hour!" Dr. Max shouted before realizing his calculations had been just a bit off in this case, "...okay so it's almost 6 o clock but you see my point ... you were entrusted to capture the evidence from the Mini Troop and store it somewhere safe and what do you DO?! You put it in the back room of my cookie shop?!"
"Yeah Doc ... I had to wonder why DO you have your own cookie shop anyway?" Skaggs asked, "seems like you have your hand in too many cookie jars ... heh"
"Now is not the time to be making the joke!" Max sighed, his already stress filled head filling with more thoughts, "Look ... did anybody see you?"
"There was a boy ..." Skaggs reported
Max let out a heavy sigh, fearing what had to be done.
"Do you ... remember anything about him?" Max asked
"Not really ... was just a ... young guy ... brown hair ..." Skaggs replied, vaguely remembering the man's appearance, "nothing too crazy ... had a name tag on ... think it was Jason or ... Joseph or ..."
"...Justin." Max groaned "...great. Look ... that kid is compromised now ... he's seen too much..."
"Should I uh ... take care of it?" Skaggs asked.
"Nein..." Max replied
"Nine?"
"...no" Max sighed. He was so tired of dealing with imbeciles "Just ... don't worry about it. I'll take care of it as soon as ..."
Just then the Doctor was interuppted by an urgent alarm going off.
"Ugh ... I've gotta go ... it's always something ... just ... stay clear of the situation and we'll figure something out..." Max said, closing his phone in haste to peer at the monitor.
There he saw what appeared to be a grid of the city. Like a radar he noticed a blipping dot getting further and further away.
"What in the hell?" the appalled doctor exclaimed, throwing up a monitor but only seeing darkness. "Oh ... he's not going to get away with this ..."
In a car speeding down the freeway sat Aeris, fairly proud of her achievement after disabling ShrinkGirl and making her getaway in her blue Saab. In the glove compartment was the tiny puck like device she snagged from the desk in Trevor's office. It was installed there some time ago to keep tabs on the doctor, his latest developments and any ideas he might've had involving ShrinkGirl.
In her pocket was a flash drive containing many important files she stole off Dr. Trevor Hilfmann's desktop. Files containing classified info on Project Delta, among other things. The flash drive alone would likely be worth quite the haul but she was still focused on finding the whereabouts of Rachel Rutschmann and hoped maybe some audio recorded on the surveillance device would illuminate more details.
Just then the cold calculated woman received a phone call, from Scott Travis.
"Aeris... are you okay?" Scott asked, "I've tried calling you 5 times now"
"I'm good" Aeris said confidently, unaware of the low hummed pitch emerging from her glove compartment as she spoke, "Just had a little run in with your friend Alexis Cole"
"Shit, what happened?" Scott asked in a panic
"I'll tell you more when I get back to the lab" Aeris said, "I've gotten all I can off Trevor Hilfmann ... I'm not sure where he disappeared to ... just hope that maniac Maximillian didn't get his hands on him or ..."
Suddenly the line went dead.
"Aeris? ... AERIS?!" Scott shouted, looking back to make sure nobody was nearby to hear his panicked shout.
The call had been terminated by a loud thunderous BOOM!!
Aeris had no time to react as the front side of her car ignited in a horrid burst of flames as she futilely tried to escape, but could only swerve her car into a guardrail, going tumbling off the main road down towards some trees, the car's frame now mangled as even the metal was beginning to give way.
Aeris gasped, out of breath, whimpering as she looked down, feeling numb from the waist down. She winced and gasped, looking up at the bright white sky as everything began to fade to black.
Giantess World
