The helicopter was trying to approach Lorellen Handshoe for the most unusual rescue mission its pilot, Ken Shultz, ever had been on … but then, Lorellen Handshoe certainly was the most unusual victim in need of rescue Ken had ever dealt with.
In this case, the chopper wasn’t needed to take Lorellen anywhere; there was now no human facility on Earth that could handle her. She was, after all, more than a mile tall.
It was the chopper’s job to try to get a message to her, a message that might save both her life and the lives of much of the world’s population. The problem was that, on the scale Lorellen was on now, communication had become … difficult.
Riding with Ken in the chopper was a distraught Carlos Mata-Macias. Until recently, he had been best known as an NBA player, with his role as boyfriend of Lorellen Handshoe as his secondary claim to fame. But Lorellen’s life had taken yet another strange turn, and now potentially created jeopardy for hundreds of thousands of people, and possibly even the entire planet if things got extreme enough.
Ken flew the chopper right up by Lorellen’s left ear. Carlos leaned out the cockpit door, held in by a strap and holding onto a handle with one hand and a bullhorn with the other. “Lorellen!” he shouted. “Lorellen! Can you hear me?”
Lorellen didn’t react at all. There wasn’t any indication that she even knew the chopper existed, let alone was right by her ear or that someone was shouting at her. It was just too small for her to hear.
Then Ken heard an odd sound, like someone snapping billions of bubbles on bubble-wrap all at once. “What was that?” he said.
“Go! Go! Get out of here!” Carlos yelled. “She’s starting to grow again!”
Ken got the copter out of the way just in time. It avoided being hit by Lorellen’s left shoulder by about two seconds, and her left boob by less than half a second. “Wow! That was close!” he said.
Ken looked back at Carlos. “What do you want to do, Mr. Mata-Macias?” the pilot asked.
But Carlos was just staring back at the woman he loved. She was now fully 10,000 feet tall, and the growth surges were still coming closer and closer together. But how could he let her know about a possible cure when she couldn’t even hear him? How had their love come to this?
Astonishingly, it had been only 47 days ago that Lorellen had attended the wedding of some friends. On her way back, she had grown to 18-foot-8. Carlos stared at his knees as he remembered how big she had seemed then, and wished she could be that small again.
Lorellen had been one of the victims of Small-Maker Overdose Disorder thanks to a vengeful drug dealer. She had become, after recovering from being microscopic and regrowing to only 1 foot tall, an outspoken advocate against drugs. Then, as other SMOD survivors emerged, she had formed a support group and become an advocate for them, as well.
But a new problem had emerged. Post-SMOD syndrome caused its victims to shrink again, months or years later, with those who’d been the smallest being the likeliest to contract the syndrome and get the worst cases. And, until today, Lorellen, who had become microscopic, was the worst SMOD case recorded. The syndrome hit her, and she started to shrink more and more frequently, faster and faster, until she was again microscopically small.
Desperate to save her, doctors had enveloped her in an experimental curative mist. It regrew her to more than 7 feet tall in minutes. But she had started to have periodic growth surges since then, and the periods were getting shorter even as she kept getting taller.
It was a few days after the wedding when the doctors confirmed what Lorellen and Carlos suspected. They had unwittingly overdosed her with the cure. During the doctor’s visit, she surged even larger, growing to 21 feet tall.
Carlos made arrangements to rent an old airplane hangar so Lorellen would have somewhere that would feel roomy to live. He also made sure some of his things were there, too, and made arrangements for Lorellen’s personal assistant and friend, Amity, an SMOD survivor herself, to have a space to work in the building.
A few days after moving in, Lorellen, now 27 feet tall, and Carlos were attempting to share in their favorite nocturnal activity. Carlos had been giving his best effort. He had been amazed at how turned on he was by Lorellen when she was tiny, and how her growth was having the same effect. He couldn’t understand it, but he wasn’t complaining.
But Carlos efforts weren’t having a significant effect for Lorellen. She looked down at him and smiled.
“So, I guess size does matter, huh?” said Carlos.
“Sorry, M,” Lorellen said. “But I still love you.”
“I love you,” he said. “In fact, I love you enough to do this.” He reached his arm inside, to past his elbow, in order to accomplish the task he had set for himself. He was surprised to find the target area was the size of his entire palm, but Lorellen’s reactions told him what he was doing was working.
Lorellen looked down at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You really do love me, don’t you?” she said.
“Oh, yeah,” Carlos said, smiling. “I love you bigger than you are.”
Just then Lorellen started to surge upward in size. She had grown, and a lot. They got her (as best they could, since her legs were still rubbery after Carlos’ effort) over to the measurement posts by the door of the isolated hangar. She was now 40 feet tall.
Lorellen looked down at her lover, who now seemed doll-sized to her. “Do you still love me bigger than I am?” she asked.
“You can’t get too big for my love,” Carlos said.
She scooped him up and hugged him to her breasts, kissing the top of his head. “If we get through this with me on a scale where we can make this work … Do any of those proposals you made to me still stand?”
Carlos grinned. “Every one,” he said.
“Then this time the answer will be yes,” she said. “But I don’t want to bind you to me if it’s unworkable, and if I get as big in relation to normal as I was small --”
Carlos reached up and patted Lorellen’s chin. “Don’t think about that,” he said. “Let’s see how far I have to reach now, shall we?”
Lorellen smiled. “Let’s,” she said.
Within two more weeks of random growth, Lorellen had climbed to 140 feet tall. She was now so big that Carlos could barely meet her needs with his entire body, and he knew the day was coming when even that wouldn’t be enough. Her food intake was tremendous. She made a few public appearances on the hangar’s grounds, but mostly communicated with the outside world electronically, using a modified big-screen TV as a smart phone.
There were other problems developing. Lorellen was now so big she had a hard time hearing people, especially women. Amity’s voice was no longer audible to her, but she had her come every day anyway. “Even if all you do if sit with me awhile, it helps to know I’ve still got my friend,” Lorellen said.
Amity nodded. “I can do that,” she said. Carlos had to repeat the words for Lorellen to hear them.
With Lorellen’s current scale, Carlos had found a new way of pleasuring both himself and her. He would sit with his legs straddling Lorellen’s nipples and rub them vigorously. To both their delight, they discovered that, if he worked it correctly, the effort actually triggered an orgasm for her. Feeling the soft, warm flesh respond as it did wasn’t exactly a bad experience for Carlos, either. At night, Carlos took to sleeping atop one or the other of Lorellen’s breasts. Which one he chose depended on whether he wanted to hear her heartbeat that night.
Three days after the discussion with Amity, Carlos was awakened in the middle of the night by an odd sound, like someone opening a dozen bottles of soda pop. He realized the sound was coming from Lorellen. She was experiencing a growth surge, one so large and violent that the sheer number of cell divisions was producing a sound.
The violence of the growth had awakened Lorellen, as well. She sat up on her bed mat, now far too small for her, and realized she could no longer stand in the hangar. But it had a 200-foot ceiling! She began to weep gallons of tears. When Carlos tried to console her and she could no longer hear him, it only made things worse.
With the help of a bullhorn, Carlos convinced Lorellen they needed to establish a power of attorney for him. They knew scientists were working on a way to stop her growth, but she was now becoming so big they might not be able to communicate what was needed to her if they achieved it. Lorellen wasn’t optimistic about it anyway. After all, science had gotten her into this mess after making her microscopic twice. But, with no other choice, she agreed.
They got Judge Trevor, a fellow SMOD survivor, to help expedite the case. The work was done within 24 hours.
It was during this time that Lorellen recorded one last anti-drug message for broadcast and the Internet. “Drugs can do bad things to your body,” she said, “things you can’t control. I can’t have friends I can talk to normally, or get a hug. Drugs can destroy your life in a big way. Take it from me; I know about big.”
A week before the helicopter ride, Lorellen, now 640 feet tall, had decided she needed to move away from human populations, especially since she was still growing. There was too big a risk she might accidentally step on someone -- or, as her size increased, a building or vehicles that were occupied. If she became vast enough, there would even be a chance she could impact weather patterns with her breath, or that she might use up too much oxygen, or that her body, although it was adapting to its new scale, might still become heavy enough to sink into the Earth. She could be the destroyer of a large population, or even all of Earth. She at least wanted to forestall that as long as possible.
She had gone out into the desert to stay by herself. Carlos wanted to go with her, but she forbade it . If she grew in her sleep now, she could destroy him and never know. That was not a risk she was willing to take, especially with the man she loved. Still, Carlos came to see her every day, even though his presence barely registered to her. He was, after all, the size of a bug to her.
Two days later, Carlos was driving to the area where Lorellen was staying when he heard the hissing, fizzing sound again, but much louder. He looked out to see his fiancee growing even more immense, clearing 1,700 feet tall. Now he was truly so small he couldn’t make himself seen nor heard by conventional means.
Two days after that, Lorellen’s height had more than doubled, to 3,700 feet tall. She’d climbed to 6,300 feet just yesterday.
Carlos had taken two calls that morning. The first was Judge Trevor, grimly relaying the news that Lorellen was no longer the record-holder for the smallest SMOD victim. The woman who had attacked the judge, who had post-SMOD syndrome already, had been exposed to a new variant of the small-maker and had been shrinking rapidly. She had become microscopic earlier in the week, and slipped to submicroscopic size for optical microscopes overnight. Since the only way to track her would entail using an electron microscope, and the electrons might well kill her on her current scale, she had broken Lorellen’s record, and was certainly lost to this world in the process, if she hadn‘t already been eaten by a micro-organism or suffocated to death by becoming too small to breath.
The judge was asking how Lorellen was when Carlos’ phone signaled a call waiting. It was the doctors with the research team. They thought they had a cure for the overdose of the last cure.
Carlos, Amity and the rest of the support group Lorellen founded were there to hear the news from the researchers. A Dr. Boyce conveyed the information.
“We can stop Ms. Handshoe’s growth,” Boyce said. “We’ve got a mist we can spray, like from a crop duster. She’ll need to inhale it. It’ll interact with Ms. Handshoe’s decidedly unique body chemistry and stop her growing. We also think it will shrink her.”
“You think?” said Carlos. “You don’t know?”
“There’s only one subject to test this on, and she can’t wait for us to sort this out,” Boyce said. “Her growth surges are coming closer together. Within no more than two days, she’ll start growing daily, and then twice a day, and she’s more than a mile tall now.”
Carlos reluctantly approved the move, with the support group agreeing with him and trying to comfort him.
But it would all come to nothing if they couldn’t get Lorellen to breath in the cure. How could he get the message to her?
Then Carlos realized what could be done. As he did, it registered that Ken was asking again, “Mr. Mata-Macias, sir? What should I do now?”
“Can that crop-duster that’s spraying the curative mist do skywriting?” Carlos asked.
“Sure,” said Ken. “I know Leo Demske -- that’s the crop-duster pilot. He does skywriting when there are no crops to spray.”
“Great,” said Carlos. “Have him skywrite the mist as close to Lorellen’s mouth as he can get, and here’s what I want it to say.”
After hearing the proposed message, Ken grinned from ear to ear. “Yes, sir!” he said.
Lorellen was experiencing the same feelings she’d had for weeks: boredom, crushing loneliness, fear that she might outgrow the planet or hurt people below her, and the utter helplessness she felt in the situation. She had turned all the negatives life had dealt her in the past into positives; why couldn’t she find some way to do that here?
Then Lorellen saw long, thin lines of clouds seemingly appearing in front of her face. She swiftly realized it actually was letters. There must be a plane, virtually microscopic to her, spelling out the message -- and, with where it was placed, it had to be for her.
The letters, no bigger than small print on a legal document to Lorellen, were still readable. The skywriting read, “L EAT MY WORDS FOR HELP” It was followed by a heart and the letter “M.”
Lorellen smiled. She didn’t know if Carlos was with the plane or not, but she figured he had to be somewhere nearby. She raised her right hand with the index finger, thumb and pinkie extended.
On the ground nearby, Ken and Carlos were watching. On seeing Lorellen’s hand gesture, Carlos smiled.
“What’s she doing?” Ken asked.
“That’s sign language for ‘I love you,’” Carlos said. “It means she got the message.”
Lorellen leaned forward and inhaled, drawing all of the skywriting mist into her mouth. Then she had to fight to keep from screaming. She realized her internal organs were starting to contract in size, beginning with her lungs, with muscle, bones and the rest following. And she was shrinking fast -- so fast it hurt. In fact, it was agonizing. But a scream at this size could deafen anyone within miles, shatter windows, maybe even knock down an entire forest.
Carlos and Ken heard a sound like air being let out of a balloon. They watched as Lorellen’s height dropped. In seconds she was down to 6,800 feet tall.
Then she hung on at that height for just a second before she began to shrink again. This time it wasn’t as pronounced a drop. She stopped at 6,000 feet tall.
Ken took a step toward the chopper. Carlos was running for it. “She’s still shrinking,” he said. “It’ll be safe to go around her now.”
Indeed, Lorellen’s height had hung up at 4,200 feet tall, then started to drop again. By the time they were airborne, she had shrunk again, to 3,660 feet.
Then Lorellen could bear it no longer. She had to scream; the pain was just too great. Her height nosedived, falling first to 1,420 feet. Then, as the chopper hovered over her, she shrank one more time, falling to 590 feet tall. Then she collapsed to the ground.
Ken landed the chopper near Lorellen’s head. She had stopped shrinking. She was nearly 100 times the height of a normal person, but she was no longer growing nor shrinking out of control.
Carlos got out of the chopper and ran over to where Lorellen’s line of sight would be. Weakly, the woman who had been the largest living creature ever to walk the Earth (and still was, if now appreciably smaller than she had been) opened her eyes. Then she saw Carlos, her bug-sized (to her) love, running toward her.
Carlos smiled and sobbed at the same time as he saw Lorellen smiling back at him. Knowing she couldn’t hear him on this scale, he got down on one knee and put his hands together, as if pleading.
Lorellen’s weak chuckle had enough force to make the helicopter rotors move. She nodded, gallons of salt water emerging from her right eye in a single happy tear.
Doctors were out to examine Lorellen within the hour. They confirmed it. Lorellen’s height was, for the first time since she was forcibly overdosed on the small-maker, stable. She was neither growing nor shrinking.
Doctors considered a controlled use of small-maker to make Lorellen a bit smaller, but both she and Carlos declined.
“I don’t get why,” said Tara, one of the members of Lorellen’s support group, in a conversation between her and Amity.
“I do, knowing them,” said Amity. “As unstable as Lorellen’s body has been due to all these drugs, they just don’t want to take any more chances. And I can’t blame them.”
“But won’t it be hard for them to live like this, especially as a married couple?” Tara asked. “I mean, she can’t even hear him talk, and she’s so big she could crush him and not know she’s done it.”
Amity smiled. “Those two will find the ways to communicate what matters to them, including expressing their love to each other. And Lorellen, of all people, knows what it’s like to live small with a giant. She’ll look out for Carlos.”
“You’re saying love conquers all,” Tara said.
Amity shrugged. “Maybe not all, but it can conquer an awful lot,” she said. “Maybe even a 583-foot difference in height.”
Then Amity’s phone played some music that sounded like a movie theme.
“What’s that?” asked Tara.
“That’s the theme to, ‘Honey, I Blew Up the Kid,’” said Amity. “Remember? The giant toddler’s mom winds up over a thousand feet tall herself late in the movie. This is from Lorellen. That‘s her text-tone on my phone.”
Tara raised an eyebrow. “How’s she texting you?”
“Several converted digital movie theater screens put together to be her cell phone,” Amity said. “This is one way she and Carlos can communicate, too.“ As she read the text, she smiled broadly. “Sorry, Tara. I’ve got to cut this conversation off.”
“How come?” Tara asked.
Amity grinned broadly. “I have to get to work calling some dressmakers to come out to Lorellen’s place on the edge of the desert,” she said. “They need to get measurements and details for one VERY big wedding dress.”