Jason had torn a loincloth from the T-shirt that engulfed him when he shrank. It had been hours since whatever happened, happened. His dormmates had left early in the morning, leaving him all alone when the green gas hit. He was tying a paper clip to a piece of string, trying to hurl it up to the doorknob that loomed over his head. He hoped to turn the doorknob to get out of his dorm room. He wasn't sure what to expect on the other side, but with no food, he knew he couldn't stay in his room for long.

Jason had failed on six attempts and was about to try again when the doorknob moved. He backed away from the door instinctively. He wanted to run and hide but didn't. Jason soon wished he had.

The knob turned, the door opened, and there stood Stephanie. This was the only room she hadn't checked in her search of the men's dorm. When she saw his tiny form, her face showed anger, then contempt, as if she were looking at a particularly loathsome bug. Then her expression changed to a smile. But not a friendly smile. Before Jason could react, she grabbed him with thumb and index finger, then squeezed him with her fist.

"Jason! What a strange way to meet. You know what happened, don't you? Everybody got small but me. I'm the only big person left in Dupuy. That makes me the boss. It also means, you'd better not make me mad."

"What are you going to do with me?", Jason shouted.

"Not stomp you to death, if that's what you're afraid of. That would be too easy. I'm not taking you to where the other survivors are, either. I have a special place for you -- my room."

She then tossed him into her purse and leaped down the steps of the now-abandoned men's dorm.
---

Stephanie placed Jason in a cage, with food, water and a bucket to recycle same. That cage was strategically placed so that her plush toys all looked down on him in silent reproach. Then she headed back down to help at the makeshift hospital on the first floor of the women's dorm.

A curtain surrounded the operating areas. A doctor, dressed in a doctor action figure costume complete with white coat and forehead mirror, came out to talk to Stephanie.

"How are we doing?", Stephanie asked.

"Not so well, Cheerleader. We're running out of a lot of things -- including antiseptic to treat wounds."

Stephanie thought for a moment. "Isn't urine antiseptic?"

"It's at least aseptic. I know in the Marines they taught us to use it in an emergency, to clean out a wound. But we've got several wounded people. I don't know how we'd get enough..."

"Can you get me a sterile container that's about the size of a coffee cup?"

"That's a pretty big order for us at this size."

"All right, then." She walked over to a sink, ran scalding hot water over a coffee cup, then placed it on the floor. Stephanie's first aid training taught her not to let anything get in the way of helping people in an emergency -- not even modesty. As the doctor watched, she squatted over the cup, grunted, then let go a stream that filled the cup. When she finished, she placed it on a toy wagon from the doll store. "Here you are", she said to the doctor.

Some two dozen people later found out that a big reason they were still alive, after getting impaled on their own tools, cut by a piece of glass, clawed by a cat or bitten by a dog, was because their wounds had been cleaned with the Cheerleader's pee.

Some paramedics on the Dupuy Fire Department saw Stephanie's " contributions" to health care, which probably inspired the next set of events.

Three Days After the Great Reduction

Stephanie had been so busy dealing with the immediate crisis, she had not had time to set up all the doll houses she had looted from stores.  Several dozen people had set up makeshift housing, using paper curtains as dividers. Unfortunately, someone had also been using a cigarette lighter to stay warm.

Stephanie had been walking around that particular room with a couple of members of the fire department when she smelled smoke. She had taken to wearing her cheerleader's uniform virtually anytime she stepped out of her room. Actually, she rotated several different uniforms, as she now had the pick of uniforms worn by the other girls, who were now far too small to wear them.

"Fire!" someone shouted, and a panic erupted. Stephanie strode over to the fire site. About a dozen people were trapped inside an open grid trash can converted to housing, with just a single small opening to the outside. Getting the fire crew in there would be hard, and it would basically be a bucket brigade, since they hadn't had a chance to build fire equipment for their new sizes.

There was exactly one person big enough to run to the nearest fire extinguisher, grab it, and use it -- Stephanie Searfass. But it was halfway across the dorm building, and she knew these people could be toast by the time she retrieved it. Once again, necessity defeated modesty.

It is hard to separate the swirl of emotions felt by a dozen doomed souls, as they looked up to the sky to see an enormous young woman remove her thong, fill their overhead vision with her most intimate regions, and save them by putting out the fire with her own yellow rain.

The fire department was so impressed, it made Stephanie an honorary firefighter. Since the fire crews didn't need normal-sized fire uniforms anymore, they gave Stephanie a uniform. On her name tag -- not Stephanie -- CHEERLEADER. It was a connection that would become strong in many ways in the coming months and years.

---

Five Days After the Great Reduction

Rachel strode the wide halls of the women's dorm, wearing a scratchy shirt and a pair of bib overalls. It was the least girly costume she could find that fit her, from the loot gathered by Stephanie's burglary of a store that sold doll outfits. Thousands of reduction refugees filled the hall, wandering without purpose, chased out of their homes and their lives, not knowing what the future would bring. Rachel, however, walked with a sense of purpose. She was looking for the staff that ran the greenhouse next to the women's dorm.

At last she recognized a familiar face. It was Dr. Alicia Horrell, head of the greenhouse project. Horrell shared Rachel's feminist outlook, although she didn't exclude men from her sexual capacities.

Alicia shrugged her shoulders, then placed her hand over her head and moved it down, to simulate shrinking. "Rachel, what are we going to do? The outside world has given us up for dead."

"Alicia, I think this gives a certain impetus to your sustainability project. It may be the one thing that keeps Dupuy alive."

"Well, of course, the goal is to grow enough food to sustain the Dupuy College community. But a whole town of thousands of people?"

"We're a lot smaller, " Rachel replied. "We eat less. The math should work."

Alicia looked down at herself, then at Rachel. "How do we keep it going... at THIS size?"

"We have hundreds, if not thousands, of suddenly underemployed people. Some of them can work this greenhouse. We can create a sustainable community here, cut off from the world."

"People won't settle for that. They'll want to find a way to tell the outside world we're still here."

"That's impossible", Rachel answered. "If we tried, we'd be eaten by cats or dogs. Or even worse, if the government finds out we're alive. They'll try to cover it up by killing all of us."

"I don't believe that--"

"Or -- OR -- keeping us all in a laboratory where they can perform experiments on us. They'd never let us out. Then we could sue the manufacturers of whatever it was that shrank us. Politicians don't like it when you mess with their benefactors."

"What about the Cheerleader? Surely she'd eventually set out on foot and try to reach an unaffected area."

"Yes, the Cheerleader COULD do that. But here's where I want you to expand your vision, Alicia. We could create something here in Dupuy, something that transcends sustainability itself."

"What would that be, Rach?"

"You and I have both talked about upending patriarchy, as it has existed for thousands of years. Here we have a situation where the most powerful person is a woman. A young, extremely attractive woman." Rachel had to draw in a deep breath at the end of that last sentence. "If we could persuade her to, instead of going out to look for help, become the
ruler of this place, I think she could create the kind of goddess society for which we have waited so long."

"You really think that could happen?"

"Think about it. The whole patriarchical military-industrial complex has abandoned us. Decided we don't exist. No one has come to help us. The people are lost, disillusioned. Now, think of this. Every one of us has a story about how they shrank and the world got scary, and then THE CHEERLEADER rescued them. We don't even call her by her name. She's just the Cheerleader, as though she were some natural force."

"A real manifestation of a goddess."

"Precisely. We've lost everything we had. Something beyond our ability to understand has happened to us. The forces of the natural and supernatural world seem to have forgotten us, except for that one great, beautiful figure in green and gold that towers above us. She's saved every one of our lives, some multiple times -- and often did it in a way that emphasizes her feminine power. Think of all those people in the hospital and the burning trash can, who looked up and saw rescue in a giant womanhood. She's the one person -- the one entity -- Dupuy can still believe in. She is not only our rescuer, she's our government, she's our moral compass. If she wants to be."

Just then they heard a huge rumbling noise outside. A robot, probably no more than four feet tall but gigantic to the tiny women, rumbled by the greenhouse, then rumbled away.

"I don't think they saw us", Rachel whispered.

"Our future society is safe", Alicia answered. "So, how do we know Stephanie wants to be a goddess?"

"We go to her and convince her to become one."

====

Two Weeks After the Great Reduction

Workers had begun to adapt the Dupuy women's dorm to the small size of most of its inhabitants, and their need to communicate with their giant protector. There was now a buzzer that the shrunken Dupuyans could press, with some effort, to let Stephanie know they were at her door. When the buzzer sounded this time, Stephanie opened her door carefully. At her feet she found Rachel and Alicia. Just a week ago she would have called one Professor and the other Doctor, but Stephanie had come to understand that she now occupied a superior place in their psychological cosmos. They both understood their new place in that cosmos, as they addressed Stephanie by what had become her de facto title.

"Cheerleader, we would like to speak with you, about the situation here in Dupuy."

"Yes. I know it's hard for everybody. I'm doing all I can."

"We know you are, Cheerleader. We don't in any way question your devotion to Dupuy. We would like to propose a way for you to use your immense power more effectively."

"Let's talk inside", Stephanie replied. She scooped up Rachel and Alicia, and unconsciously began caressing their backs with her finger, as she carried them to her bed.

She put Rachel and Alicia down on the bed and sat down at the other end.

"Let me start with a question, if the Cheerleader permits."

Stephanie smiled. "You don't have to talk about me in the third person. I've just been put into a position where I can help."

Rachel continued. "If I may be permitted to say, Cheerleader, you are far too humble. Everyone, and I mean everyone, in Dupuy owes their lives to you. Looking up and seeing you helping us and protecting us is the only thing keeping a lot of people going right now."

Stephanie laughed. "That's something else that surprises me... why... why does everybody call me 'the Cheerleader'?"

Rachel could have said, because not everyone in Dupuy knows your name, but she didn't. "It's because they don't feel right calling you by your first name. You are so much more powerful than us, and you have used that power to do so much good. We don't feel right addressing you as an equal. When we became small, you became elevated over us. We look up to you... literally."

"Awwwww...." Stephanie groaned. "Well, I feel like you're all my little plush toys, and I love you very much." Then she sighed. "I just don't know what more I can do. I can't make you big again."

"We're not asking you to do more, Cheerleader. We're asking you to do something different. Before I explain, I'd like to ask you a question. Since you are the only big person in Dupuy, are you thinking about leaving us?"

Stephanie didn't know how to answer the question. "No... I wouldn't leave you... I mean, I think someone's going to have to try to get help once things are stabilized... but no, I wouldn't leave you."

"Cheerleader, I know that you love us. What do you think would happen, if you made it to the outside world and got people here to help us?"

"Well, they would come and rescue you, and get you help, and see if they could make you big again."

Rachel shook her head. "That green gas that made everybody but you get small... was part of a government project. It was secret. Now it's all over the news, but everybody thinks we got dissolved. If we suddenly reappear, that means billions of dollars in lawsuits against the companies that made this stuff."

"But they should be sued! This is a terrible thing that's happened..."

"Cheerleader... this area is sealed off. That gas is still in the air and would probably shrink any would-be outside observers. So if they do get us out, nobody will know about it. They will be able to take us, in secret, conduct experiments on us... even kill us. Remember, everyone thinks we're dead. Cheerleader, please, for our sake, don't go for help."

"But how will we survive?"

Alicia piped up for the first time. "The greenhouse next to the dorm. We can grow enough food to support Dupuy."

"Alicia's right", Rachel continued. "We can create a sustainable society here. Shrunk to five and six inches in height, our food needs and carbon footprints are much smaller. But we need a leader. Someone to whom the people can look up. YOU need to be that leader, Stephanie."

Stephanie paused, drew in her breath, and spoke. "I don't know if I can do that. I feel like this huge burden has fallen on me. I feel very lonely."

A light bulb went off in Rachel's head. "Stephanie, have you found a new boyfriend yet?"

"No. I mean, I hadn't before all this happened and now it's the farthest thing from my mind. Anybody who could be a boyfriend is out there, in the outside world. I can't imagine anyone in Dupuy wanting to get involved with me. It would be like dating a monster, or an elephant."

Now Rachel's eyes brightened. She knew she had a bargaining chip to close the deal.

"Cheerleader... Stephanie... I know it's hard to see from up there, but I see the way the men of Dupuy react when you pass by... when you talk to them... when you pick them up and hold them... they think you are the hottest woman who has ever existed... a thousand times hotter than you already were."

Stephanie blushed. "Wow... you really think?"

"I don't think. I KNOW. I also know that if you want to put your little dry spell to an end, they would gladly help. Remember what I told you last summer. Become the conqueror. Get your queen cat game on."

The gears in Stephanie's mind began to mesh. "I remember on the day everybody got small, going in the firehouse and picking up all those buff guys, all shrunk down to six inches tall. I remember thinking, "I could take this man. I could take all of them if I wanted to."

"And they'd like it", Rachel answered. "Why do you think they gave you a fire chief's hat?"

"I'm not sure they'd like it", Stephanie giggled. "I'd be the one in charge, and they'd have to pay a lot of attention to... certain places... and I don't think one guy would be enough to fill my needs."

By now, Rachel was fighting a certain reaction in those same places on her own body.
"You're the Cheerleader... who says you have to stop at one?"

The Cheerleader, paused, and her eyes got big, and she reared back her head for a huge laugh that rang in Rachel's tiny ears.

"You know, I remember something else from that day. When I was in the toy store, getting doll clothes and dollhouses for everybody. I started to swipe my credit card, then I realized it didn't matter. I AM the law in Dupuy, until somebody says otherwise."

"Nobody's going to say otherwise", Rachel responded. "You are the law. You are authority. You are our hope. You are our desire. Just take power... take us... under your power. The first thing you need to do... is show Dupuy that YOU are our DIVA!"