“Ah, damn it, he killed me again! That's like, the third time this match! He's got to be cheating somehow!” yelled my friend Kyle, dropping his controller onto the couch in frustration and causing me to laugh a bit.

“Are you sure it's the same guy?”

“Yeah, I'm sure, John. He's the only guy in the game running around with obnoxiously colorful armor.”

“I think it's just time you admit that you suck at this game and try a new one.”

“You know I want to unlock everything in this one before I... no... no...nonono, gah, come on!” I couldn't help but laugh as I looked straight ahead at the television screen in front of us where a digital version of my friend was gunned down yet again.

“The orange guy got you again, didn't he?”

“I don't want to talk about it” Kyle replied as he dropped his controller once more and turned off his gaming console.

“Well then, what do you want to do now?”

“Why don't we go upstairs for a bit? There's something new I want to show you.” Without waiting for me to reply, Kyle practically leapt off the couch and started heading through the hall and towards the stairs.

“Hold your horses, man!” I yelled as I got off the couch and began following him up the steps.

We reached the second floor of the house and he led me into a spare bedroom. The room didn't really serve any one specific purpose. His family just sort of used it for storage and the presence of a table and a computer made it something of a home office as well.

“Damn, it's hot up here. I'm gonna let in some air.”

I looked around the room and quickly noticed what was “new” that my friend wanted to show me. On the far right side of the room stood something very large with a plain white sheet draped over it. “What the hell's that, man?” I asked, pointing to the mysterious object in question.

“Go on, have a look for yourself” replied Kyle with his back to me as he opened a window and caused the brightness of a late-June afternoon to pour into the room.

A gentle breeze blew into the room and made the sheet flutter slightly as I approached the object. I reached out and grabbed the fabric in my hand before pulling it away, revealing something that made my jaw drop.

Standing directly in front of me in my best friend's attic was a shrink ray. It was big, it was bulky, and the thing was downright foreboding to be honest. Even though it was one of the older models, the technology was still considerably new and highly sophisticated, and therefore quite expensive.

I couldn't help but stare in amazement, and so I did for an unknown amount of time before realizing that my mouth was hanging open. “No way, man... how did you guys get one?!”

I turned around to face Kyle who stood behind me with his arms crossed at his chest. “Awesome, right?” Wide eyed, I simply nodded and waited for him to speak again. “This thing's been at my dad's company for years. It still works and everything, but the technology has come a long way since back when this came out so I guess he's replacing it with a newer model. He took this one home until he can decide what to do with it. You know, sell it, donate it, whatever. I think he might have a soft spot for this old hunk of junk and doesn't really want to see it go, but my mom doesn't like having it in the house so who knows where it will end up.”

“This is amazing, thanks so much for showing me. I've never been this close to one of these things, I've really only seen them on TV and in the movies, you know?” I said as I began kneeling down to pick the sheet up from the floor to cover the machine back up.

“What are you doing, man? Don't you want a demonstration?”

“Demonstration? What do you... you don't mean... you're not suggesting...”

“Yeah, man!” replied Kyle, laughing. “Let's shrink something! We've got the house to ourselves, nobody's gonna know if we fire her up and have a little fun!”

Part of me knew better than to risk getting into trouble and using Kyle's dad's machine, but as I took another look at it, I realized this was my first and possibly my only chance to get hands-on with this technology. There was no way I could pass it up. “Alright, let's do it!”