Chapter 5

Next day, in the morning, Jorien stood in front of the company building. Having parked her car on the parking lot, she approached it until she stood 20 feet from the entry. Jorien looked up at its 260 foot high walls, all made of mirroring glass. She knew on which floor the bosses had their offices and on which one Ted's was. Soon, Jorien would show them all.

"It is not abusing power", she told herself again as the voice in the back of her head nagged that she was being unjust. "I just want to make them a little afraid. Nothing more. Just that."

Jorien saw other people from her department shooting her funny looks as they walked by. They didn't know what to make of her, or if it was a joke, she suddenly being so tall. No one said anything, though. Jorien ignored them.

She was still wearing the same clothes she had been wearing yesterday. It wasn't her usual business outfit, but she had to if she didn't want to be naked. Jorien knew that only the clothes she had worn when doused with the cosmic radiation would grow with her. Oh well, they had to do.

Jorien wore a simple cotton T-shirt, with a common bra under it. Jeans, silk underpants and cotton socks. She had her spare-time black leather boots on, with rubber soles. No high heels. It was what the people of the lower-ranking places in the company wore, those that did the administration and worked in the storage areas. They had little to no contact with the business visitors. Hence, no dressing code there. No matter.

She had tied her black hair in a ponytail. The hair band would grow as well, since she had worn it yesterday too. She didn't wear any make-up, as usual, and wore no jewelry.

Jorien took a deep breath and focused on growing. She gained height, slow but steady. As she grew, her eyes were locked on the mirror walls. They slowly passed vertically as she grew. Jorien heard screams and shouting from below, no doubt people who witnessed her growing. She grinned, but didn't look down. Here and there windows opened and small people looked outside, with looks of disbelief and fear on their faces.

"Good," Jorien thought. "Be afraid. Here comes an emancipated woman!"

When she reached 150 feet, Jorien stopped. She stepped closer to the building, still not looking down. Hence she didn't notice the scrubs she squashed as she scanned the windows for Ted's office. As she found it, she used her fist to smash the windows. With a loud crash, the glass shattered, and Jorien peeked inside. She saw some screaming people, including her colleague Ted. Smiling, she reached inside and grabbed him. He was the size of a small action figure to her. She brought him to her face.

"Hello Ted. What's the matter? Did your competitor turn out too big for you? Ha ha!" Jorien had fun seeing the scared man looking at her with an open mouth.

"Well, if you thought I am big, watch THIS," Jorien shouted, and grew anew. Holding a screaming Ted in her hand, Jorien expanded. She grew and grew, savoring the sight of Ted getting smaller and smaller in her hand.
She didn't notice, nor even feel how the front of her boots bulldozed through the walls of the first two floors as she gained height, shoving the desks out of their way and toppling chairs before they were crushed under her enormous soles. People ran screaming away, paper flew through the office rooms as the two large, leather walls that were her footwear crashed through the glass and stone. Plaster and debris rained down on unlucky employees and file cabinets toppled. But Jorien didn't care. She was looking at Ted, nothing else mattered.

Jorien held Ted in the open palm of her hand. He was hardly half an inch to her as she stopped growing, now 900 feet tall. She grinned at her tiny victim, and enjoyed the way he looked back at her, full of fear.

"Well, well. Not so though now, eh? Try to use your elbows now, stud. Do you see how quick a woman makes career? Before you know it, they grow over your head! I was your equal at first, but now, look at me. I'm far higher up now, ha ha!"

Jorien had fun. She acted as if climbing the career ladder brought physical growth with it as well, as in her fantasy. And she was a true giant now. Make that giantess. She was a woman after all, a woman with ambitions!

"I have gained power, Teddy. A lot of power. I am mighty, while you are nothing more than a small, brown-nosing, slimy bastard! You'd better be careful whom you pick as your enemy, for if they make career, they walk all over you. Or maybe...," Jorien brought the terrified man closer to her enormous face, "...step on you? Hmmm?"

She enjoyed the look of utter terror on Ted's tiny face. Jorien could make out his features, even though his face was hardly 1/8 of an inch to her. Then, she decided turn her fantasy in reality.

"Imagine, a huge powerful woman, on top of the career ladder," she continued. "Not CARING about low employees like you!"

Jorien had begun walking back to the parking lot, and when she uttered the word "caring," she stepped on Ted‘s car with her 110 feet long foot. She knew what she was doing, but kept looking at the tiny captive in her hand. Her foot crushed the equally tiny car without the slightest resistance. The thick sole of her leather boot, easily as tall as a full-grown man now, was too much for the vehicle. It flattened, as did two other unlucky cars standing in its vicinity. When Jorien lifted her foot, three metal plates, mixed with shattered glass and gasoline, were all that remained.

Ted hadn't seen what she did, but he had heard the noise of crushing metal and breaking glass. He knew. Jorien had stepped on his expensive car, one of his status symbols, and destroyed it like nothing.

"What would a woman as powerful as me care about your tiny vehicles, Ted? I simply step on them! They are nothing to me. Bugs! Vermin! Nothing more! You have worked hard to be able to afford one of those, but to me, they are just worthless junk. I am far above things like that, they are too insignificant for me. And therefore, I just step on your expensive, tiny car because it is below my notice."

Jorien, who had always enjoyed the fantasy of being a rich, powerful businesswoman, was living her dreams. Although she was technically speaking still Ted's equal, her height made her more than that in her point of view. She wanted him to know that she was imagining being a supreme businesswoman, having made a tremendous career, and that she was therefore gigantic. He was to be part of her fantasy.

"And as I gain power, I will become more and more gigantic! So big that I couldn't even see you with a magnifying glass. So vast I couldn't even see you using a microscope! The entire world, my little playing ball! And your puny problems and life, it matters nothing to me! Because I am far too big and powerful! You want that, Ted? Me, holding the world between my fingers? And then thinking that you are on it and therefore squashing it like an overripe grape? Would you like that? Ha ha ha!"

Jorien looked at the terrified man in her hand. What power she had! She could drop him, and he would fall to his death. Yes, he'd fall down along her body, which was so big now a full-grown man falling down would hit the ground only after about twenty seconds.

Jorien took a deep breath, savoring her might. Following a sudden whim, she blew at Ted. She just wanted to make him afraid, but she hadn't estimated the strength of her breath correctly. Jorien blew Ted accidentally from her hand, and swirling like a leaf in a gale he fell down.

"Oh, shit," Jorien muttered and tried to catch the falling man in a reflex. But again, she underestimated her strength. Using too much of the strength of her now huge muscles, Jorien gripped him too tightly, and Ted was popped in her enormous hand like a housefly.

"Now you've killed somebody," the voice in her head told her. "You are a murderer."

"It was an accident. I didn't want to kill him, just scare him a little," Jorien thought, looking at the bloody remains on her hand. "And he is so tiny. Like a gnat. Yes, like a gnat. Who cares about killing gnats?"

Jorien looked down at her feet. She stood on the parking lot, crushed cars in her footprints (she had taken care not to step on her own car), and saw lots of people standing around her feet. From her height, they looked tiny too. They were tiny. To her.

"All those people down there...they look like insects. Tiny, crawling insects...". Jorien thought. They reminded her of the infantry soldiers in a computer game she once played, "Command & Conquer". The soldiers and other people running over the screen were about an inch tall. To the player. And these people down at her boots were about an inch to in comparison to her.

"Insects," she thought again, looking around her. "Yucky, annoying vermin. I am big. Should I...no, I shouldn't..." Jorien was thinking while looking at the tiny men and women, who stood there, gawking up at her. Then suddenly, she lifted a foot, and placed it upon a group of people.