Chapter 5

Brian woke up. He was unsure where he was for a few moments. The bed under him was warm, smooth and rose and fell gently. In the dim light he noticed Adel cuddled into his chest. He remembered the events leading up to his falling asleep and looked up to see Dave staring down at him.

"Hi." Dave whispered with a smile.

"Hi," replied Brian, "how long have we been asleep?"

"Only about an hour."

"OK." He looked at Adel, who was sleeping peacefully. Brian shivered and realised why he was awake. "I'm cold."

"Yeah," said Dave, "I was thinking about waking you, I'm cold too. Do you want to go grab some bedding?"

"Sure." He sat up, careful not to wake the sleeping woman. He scooted off Dave's chest. "Where am I going?"

"Head upstairs, just grab things off the beds." Brian stared climbing the stairs while Dave continued. "Second door on the right is the spare room, ours is ahead on the left."

Brian moved about quietly, taking two doonas and four pillows downstairs.

"So," he asked, "am I making you smaller, or these bigger?"

"I was thinking you could put Adel on the couch," he said, "then you could come up here with me."

Brian slipped on his shirt, underwear and pants to keep warm.  He arranged a pillow on the couch.

"Who'd operate the machine?" He asked.

"Surely you can set it up so I could just press the go button?"

Brian reached over Dave's chest and picked up Adel, moving back over to the couch he placed her head on the pillow, covering her in one of the doonas.

"Yeah," he said, "I could."

He felt a little nervous about this. He'd grown and shrunk four other people and loved that power. He was less sure about doing it himself. Though it felt hypocritical of him to be unwilling to do to himself what he'd done to others. Besides, cuddling up with Dave wasn't a bad prospect. He lent down to the machine, powering it back up. He entered the parameters.

"OK," he said, pointing at a green icon on the touch screen, "press that one."

"Green for go." Chuckled Dave.

"Standard UI toolkit."

Brian walked over and picked up the doona and pillows.

"Go." He said.

Dave pressed the button. Brian felt the pins and needles flow over his skin and watched as the world around him started to get smaller. He passed the bedding to Dave who layer it out on the floor. It was going to be a tight fit, but he was sure they would make it work.

Dave laughed at the bedding that was still only half his size, and looked over at Brian.

"Come here." He said. "Let me help you."

Brian approached and Dave reached out, pulling his unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders, drawing him in and kissing his collar bone gently. Brian was two thirds of Dave's size, he swiftly removed his pants, then planted kisses on Brian's chest.

Dave rolled Brian onto his back, he hit the couch and there was a crashing sound.

"Oh shit!" Said Brian, pushing Dave off him and rising to a sitting position. He spun around and he blood ran cold.

He looked down at the machine. The outer case was smashed, the emitter was bent and the exposed innards looked like a mess.

*  *  *  *

Adel woke up to the sound of Brian swearing.  She was on the couch, she noticed, with a pillow and a doona.  Dave was naked, kneeling behind Brian, a doona big enough for him over his shoulders.

"A couple of the boards are crushed, but the main board is intact.  I should be able to work around that with a PC or two." Brain was saying. "So control isn't too big a problem."

Adel got up and walked along the couch to the end and looked over.  Brian's Boson Ray was a mess.

"What the hell happened." she demanded.  She looked at Brian, who was now the size of Dave. "And when did that happen?"

Dave looked guilty. "I persuaded Brian he should grow.  There wasn't enough room when I rolled him over and this happened." He said, pointing at the broken device.

"Shit." Brian said. "The crystals are cracked."

"That isn't good?" Dave asked

"No." Brian sighed. "We probably can't move the machine without really breaking them. Even using it once might shatter them."

"You mean you can't get us back to normal?!" Adel shouted.

"Maybe, maybe not." said Brain, "If they break we just need to replace them, the problem is that the supplies aren't local."

"How long?"

Brain remained silent.

"How long?" Adel repeated

"A week." said Brain. "Maybe two."

"Shit."

"Let's worry about that when we get there.  I need a computer." said Brian. "We might be lucky."

Adel climbed the stairs, each of which was waist height to her. Entering their shared study she picked up her laptop from the couch, and was thankful she hadn't left it out of reach on the desk. She went to the balcony overlooking the lounge, lifted the laptop over her head onto the short wall and called out.

"Can you grab it from here?"

She felt the laptop pulled from her grasp and Brian called out "thanks".

"Crap." He said. "I'm going to need to type with a pen or something."

"Here you go." Said Dave. She imagined he had grabbed one from the breakfast bar.

She climbed slowly back down the stairs.

"Got what you need?" Dave asked Brian.

"I think so." He replied. "Just give me some time to concentrate."

*  *  *  *

Brian lost all sense of time. He carefully attached wires from the device to the laptop, using the USB port pins in place of a proper socket. He downloaded software from his online repository, configured it and ran it on the laptop. It fell over a couple of times before he compensated for his improvised connections.

Finally he had something he thought would work.

*  *  *  *

"What time is it?" Dave heard Brian ask. He realised he'd drifted off into a light sleep.  He looked down at Adel, curled up on his left pec, then up at the clock.

"5:30am" he replied.

"Well," said Brian, "I don't think our chances of this working are going to get any better."

Dave gently stroked Adel's side and whispered "wake up" to her.  She slowly raised her head.

"C'mon," he said, "Brian thinks he's got the machine working."

She stretched and got up.  She stood and Dave lifted her to the ground.  She approached Brian.

"You're sure." she asked.

"As sure as I can be, given I can't actually replace any of the components right now." he replied.  "The question is: who goes first."

"I've been thinking," said Adel, "the best chance would be to get you back to normal so you can repair it properly."

"That's logical," agreed Dave, "even if the machine only gets you back to normal, you'll be in a better position to fix it."

"There is one other possibility," Brian said, "and I'm sorry Adel."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because this still leaves you stuck." he replied. "But we should be able to get Dave and I in one go.  We're both changing from 4 times our size back to normal.  The additional strain is negligible, and it's two birds with one stone."

"No," Adel said, "that makes sense.  And having you both only four times bigger than me will be better."

"OK," said Brian. "Dave, get dressed.  Adel, I'll show you what needs to happen."

"Wait," said Dave, "why did you need to show her? I only had to push a button."

"Because," said Brian, "the control systems are gone.  This is going to be harder."

Adel stood in front of the laptop.  She understood everything Brian showed her.  The thing that made her nervous was the power level.  According to Brian, normally the machine would use a short burst at high power.  This time, to be safe, he'd set it to use a lower power for longer.  She had to make sure the power didn't go over the limit he'd set.

Brian left Adel at the laptop, which he'd set behind the couch in case the worst happened with the machine.  Adel would be reasonably protected.  He went and stood with Dave, who was now dressed, in front of the emitter.  He checked he had everything, which really just included his clothes.

"OK" he said, "you ready?"

Dave just nodded.

"Adel," Brain said, his mouth feeling dry, "fire."

The emitted buzzed.  It sent out a couple of small sparks, and then lit up as it fired.  One second.... two seconds.... three- There was a flash and a bang as the emitter unit itself exploded.

"Adel?" called Brian.

"I'm here." she called from behind the couch, "I'm fine."

He and Dave were shrinking, but he wasn't sure that the machine had fired for long enough.  They were no longer crouching, and were certainly less than three times the size they should be.

Brian approached the emitter, bent down and looked.

"Bugger." was all he said.  He continued to look over the remnants of the machine.  He looked inside. "Fuck."

"Not good?" asked Dave.

"Very not good." he replied. "I don't think the emitter lasted long enough, and the crystals have shattered.  I'll have to order new ones as soon as possible.  They’re not cheap."

"I think it's safe to say," said Adel, "that we're all more than happy to pay for this."

After another two minutes had passed, their slow rate of shrinking stopped.  They could easily stand up under an eight foot ceiling, but they certainly weren't back to their normal size.  Brain looked at Dave, who's head was just too high to fit through a door, and knew that he himself was probably a bit over seven feet tall.  He sighed.  At least Adel had been right; it would be easier for him to fix the machine now.  Once he got the parts.

"I think," he said to Adel and Dave, "that's all we'll get out of the machine right now.  Sorry Adel."

"It's OK." she said. "Just get me back to normal as soon as you can.  Then you'll be in real trouble."

"Scott." said Brian. "We have to go see him."

*  *  *  *

It was six thirty by the time they pulled up at Mary's place.  Brian was finding driving difficult.  Even with the seat back as far as it would go he was really too tall.  The trio walked down the path to the front door and rang the doorbell.  Then he banged on the door.  They waited a moment and Brain rang the bell again.  They saw a shadow from inside the house and heard the lock undo.  Mary stood there in a dressing gown.

"What the..." was all she said.

"Mary," said Brian, "we have to come in."

"But you're..." she said

"Yes," said Brian, "we know. You need to get Scott.  This is important."

"Wait in the lounge, I'll get him."

The trio headed into the lounge room and waited in silence for Mary and Scott.  Brian didn't want to look at any of them right now.  If he'd never given into Dave and used the machine on himself, then they wouldn't be here now.

Mary entered the lounge room, Scott zipping up his skinsuit in her hand.  She put her hand on the coffee table, he climbed down.

"What's going on?" he asked, looking up at the group.

"We have a problem." said Brain, "A big problem."  He kicked himself for the choice of words.

"Who's this?" Scott asked, pointing at Dave.

"This is Dave," said Brian, "and you met Adel yesterday."

"Will you just explain what you're doing here at 6:30 in the morning, and why you're all like that." said Mary, impatiently.

"Like what?" asked Scott

Brian looked down at the little man.  He and Dave were maybe twenty to thirty percent bigger than they should be, but in the context of being fifty times Scott's size...

"I doubt he can see it from his perspective." he said.

"Brian and Dave," said Mary, "they're over 2 metres tall.  And Adel is shorter than my knee.  What's going on?"

Brian let out a massive sigh.

"The machine." he said "It's broken."