Assessing the damage

Sophie was awakened to a gentle tapping on her door. Climbing out of bed, she crossed the room, glancing toward Theo’s resting place. Opening the door partway, she saw Grace, a small dish with little bits of food on it. Pulling the door open, she allowed the shorter woman inside.

“A couple of things,” Grace started, “They need to eat, so I brought this,” she said, handing over the dish, tiny pieces of eggs, toast, a piece of strawberry. “They also need someplace to do their business,” she added, a sour expression on her face.

Sophie grinned.

“Dr. Brauer said he needs for us to go into the lab today and see if we can run a diagnostic program to assess the condition of the GCR. He had me use his email account to provide instructions to Dr. Sommers to ensure there will be no problems,” she said. “In the email, he told Dr. Sommers everything was normal at the time of your workshift. He remained behind and that’s when the incident happened.”

“Good,” Sophie replied. “Give me a bit to get ready, then we can go,” she said, bringing the dish to the desk for Theo.

After a hasty meal, Sophie and Grace went directly to the research lab. Dr. Elliot Sommers was on hand directing and coordinating activities inside the GCR room. A man in his late sixties, he normally always wore an affable friendly expression, today a thundercloud lurked behind his hazel eyes.

In the medical section of the lab, Dr. Olivia Featherstone was in charge. A slender woman in her mid-thirties, she possessed a rare beauty though she tried to downplay it because she felt people did not take her academic accomplishments seriously given her appearance. As a result, she seemed remote and aloof, earning her the nickname The Ice Queen amongst her students.

Dr. Featherstone called Sophie into her office, her face a mask of frosty unhappiness. Of similar height to Sophie, Dr. Featherstone possessed light brown hair with natural streaks of blonde pulled back into a severe ponytail, her green eyes like chips of glacial ice.

“You were scheduled to be here last night,” she stated. “What happened?” she asked, pointing to a chair as she closed the door behind Sophie.

“Umm, everything was fine when I left,” Sophie replied, breaking eye contact with Dr. Featherstone’s intense green eyes and taking a seat.

“I saw Dr. Brauer’s email this morning, but I also checked the duty log from last night,” she said. “You sure you want to stand by the ‘everything was okay when I left’ story?” she challenged.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Sophie replied.

“The log has been altered, the time code has been changed. Only three of us have the authority to do it. Me, Hans, and Elliot. I know I didn’t do it and I’m sure Elliot didn’t do it, but I wouldn’t put it passed Hans. The correct time code for the incident was much earlier in the evening, a time when you were here. What happened? What did Dr. Brauer do?” she asked.

Sophie sucked her lower lip into her mouth and was gnawing on it. Dr. Featherstone crossed her arms and leaned back against her desk.

“No, there must be some kind of mistake,” Sophie said.

“I think the mistake is being made right now. We know the machine was triggered and that it released a focused pulse and I think you were here and saw what happened,” asserted the older woman.

Sophie felt trapped under the scrutiny of the intimidating woman, she wanted to blurt out what truly happened, but she was afraid, afraid of what Dr. Featherstone might do, not just to her, but to Theo and the others.

“Am I the only one to find it curious that this,” she paused, “Little,” as if to emphasize the word, “Accident occurs and Dr. Brauer isn’t here demanding somebody’s heart on a plate?”

Sophie shrugged. “I don’t know,” she replied.

Suddenly, the normally arctic Dr. Featherstone smiled. “We are going to have some time to get to the bottom of this, I want you to know you can talk to me before things get out of hand.”

Sophie nodded. “Thank you Dr. Featherstone,” she said meekly.

By midafternoon, Dr. Sommers had been able to determine the cause of the incident. He determined it was a confluence of events that triggered the malfunction of the GCR. According to him, the machine was active at the time it was attempting to upload Clayton’s modified algorithm, causing some type of incompatibility feed that discharged a pulse rather than initiated shutdown protocols. The failure of the emergency shutdown allowed the motherboard to fry. In essence, the situation was at a minimum a setback of several weeks.

At the end of the long day, Grace showed up at Sophie’s desk, “We good to go?” she asked.

Sophie nodded. Gathering her stuff, she logged off her terminal.

“So what did Elsa, she-wolf of the SS want with you?” Grace asked, once they exited the building.

“She knows something is up,” Sophie replied, shaking her head slowly.

“You didn’t you tell her?” Grace asked.

“Tell her what? Dr. Brauer, Clayton, and my boyfriend can now fit in my pocket?” she laughed at her own comment.

“That would be kind of funny,” Grace commented amusedly.

Sophie shook her head again. “She knows something, she practically interrogated me.”

Grace nodded. “I think if she knew something she would’ve just confronted you with it. Dr. Sommers didn’t say anything to me at all, just had me doing diagnostic tests all day.”

“I don’t know,” Sophie replied.

“How’s Theo holding up?” Grace asked.

Sophie chuckled, “He was pretty depressed last night, at least until I let him crawl around inside my night shirt,” she said.

Grace laughed. “How was that? I mean, wasn’t it kind of odd?” she asked.

Sophie shrugged. “I don’t know, it was, well, kind of interesting,” she said, a touch of crimson coloring her cheeks.

Grace stopped walking, her mouth open in a wide smile. Sophie stopped. “You liked it!” Grace said.

“It was different, you know. I don’t know,” protested Sophie.

“It’s okay. When I watch Dr. Brauer or Clayton and I kind of feel like a goddess or something. You know, looking down at them their tiny lives in my hands. Makes me feel powerful,” Grace said with a giggle.

Sophie nodded, there was a feeling of empowerment, dominance, and it felt arousing.

“What about Dr. Brauer and Clayton?” Sophie inquired.

“Dr. Brauer is busy most of the time, Clayton stills seems a little rattled,” she answered with a shrug. “I should see if he wants to climb around inside my nightie,” she teased.

Sophie laughed.

Sophie

When finally they arrived back at the house, they each went to their own rooms.

Sophie closed the door behind her. Theo was on top of the desk.

She smiled at and picked him up, before walking over to the bed and sitting down.

“How did it go today?” he asked

“We’re still trying figure it out,” she replied. “How are you holding up?” she asked.

“Bored out of my mind,” he replied, bringing his hands up to the sides of his head

 “I would like to talk about last night,” she said.

“I apologize if I made you feel uncomfortable,” he said. “I had no right to ask you to touch yourself.”

“There’s so much going on, I didn’t know what to think,” she replied. “I don’t want you to think I’m rejecting you,” she added.

“I think I was just wanting to feel something other than scared,” he expressed. “And I feel safe with you, I love you.”

She smiled. “I love you too, and plus you’re a horn dog,” she said.

He nodded, “It’s true, there’s no denying it,” he acknowledged. “But even though I’m just little, we can still do stuff,” he said with a wink.

“You are so bad,” she accused.

“Absolutely,” he replied, pretending to twist his nonexistent moustache.

She lifted him up and held him in her hands a moment before kissing him on the face. “I’m going to have a shower,” she said, setting him down. Getting up off the bed, she stopped at the door, turned back and winked at him.

In the shower, Sophie let the water cascade over her lean fit body. She didn’t want to tell Theo how bad the situation was for fear of how he might react, but she also didn’t want to hold anything back. She felt conflicted. Talking about sex seemed to lift his spirits and elevate his mood and she had to admit, the sensations he sent through her the previous night were delightful. When he asked her to touch herself, she had been reluctant only because they hadn’t been together before, seen each other naked. She chuckled, she’d seen him now though. Maybe turnabout was fair game. She made sure to shave her legs and make herself presentable. Finishing in the shower, she dried off, then wrapped the towel around her body and returned to her room. Closing the door, she let the towel fall away from her body and drop to the floor.

“Is this what you wanted to see?” she asked, moving slowly across the floor toward the bed. Hips swaying with each step. He met her eyes then stared at the small patch of neatly trimmed hair crowning her vagina.

“It’s everything and more,” he replied as she came near the edge of the bed and stopped. “You are absolutely beautiful,” he said.

She smiled at the compliment. Spreading her arms wide, she slowly turned so he could see all of her. She paused with her back to him. “Well?” she asked, looking over her shoulder and down at him

“You have a world class bum, in fact, it might be perfect,” he said.

She wiggled her hips to shake her firm little bottom at him. Turning, she lifted him up and climbed onto the bed. Reclining against her pillows, she set him on her chest. Walking to her left breast, he knelt down and place his hands on the aureole, her flesh still heated from the shower. As before, she licked her fingers and caressed her nipples. He used her saliva to massage the hardened flesh, his own excitation becoming apparent. Again, he traversed her body, coming to a stop atop her lift tuft of pubic hair. He looked back at her. Reaching down, she lifted him up and parted her legs, before setting him down between them. He looked at her genitals, nearly as long as he was tall. Pink lips, dewy, like a morning flower beginning to bloom. Her scent was fresh and clean, excited. He watched as she tenderly touched herself, fingers dancing over the delicate flesh. Stepping closer, he traced the fingers of his right hand along the side of her labia, fingers slick from the passing. Bringing his hand to his mouth, he licked at them, tasting her. She began to arch and rock against her touch so he took a step back. The pace of her breathing quickened and the whole area in which he stood seemed to get warmer. When she shuddered, he knew she had come. Moving in close, he leaned forward and kissed her on the vagina.

Reaching down, she brought him back to her chest. “Is that what you were thinking?” she asked, sucking her lower lips into her mouth.

“That was amazing, I love you,” he said

 “I love you too,” she said, smiling. She chuckled to herself, the thought of him down there watching turned her on a lot more than she thought. “Do you want to go again?” she asked.

He nodded slowly.

Parting her legs, she arched her pelvis and set him near her still heated sex. As before, she traced small circles around her delicate bud, teasing it to come out. With her other hand, she slid it under her bum, so she could ease a finger into herself. She moved slowly, deliberately, building her fire in intensity. Coming forward, Theo put his hands on the finger she was using inside her pussy. The contact made her shiver and she came hard. Removing her finger, she used the hand on her clit to bring him back to her chest. She watched as he licked away at her slick fingers with his tiny little tongue, lapping up her sweet juices. Watching him, his existence at her whim, she closed her eyes, power the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Dr. Featherstone

The day following her show with Theo, Sophie was back in the lab. Grace was there also, but Dr. Sommers kept her on the fourth floor reviewing analytics taken the day previous. Dr. Featherstone on the other hand kept Sophie close.

Olivia Featherstone watched Sophie from her office. She knew the girl was academically brilliant, but not overly wise in street smarts.

Her intellectual curiosity was positive afire. She had watched the surveillance footage, the in-lab camera was set up to automatically record the GCR during all firing events. She had watched the distortion wave wash over Hans, Clayton and the younger man. She had seen the effects the wave had on them, reducing them to a handful of issues. She had watched Sophie collect the tiny men, then the camera stopped.

She wondered why the men were affected as they had been, why the GCR didn’t differentiate between normal healthy tissue and cancerous tissue and refuse to fire. She wondered at how the young man’s fiddling misaligned the calibrations of the GCR. But more, she wondered what Sophie did with the little men. The email from Hans’ account the morning after the incident meant he had provided the girl with access to the account, but was he still alive? Knowing the arrogant prick, he was documenting the events as some type of live trial, not that that was a bad idea, but she intensely disliked the thought of his using the situation to leverage even more credit for her work.

It had been her dedication, her tireless research, and long hours that had provided the backbone to the project, but it was his name that had secured the necessary finances. He postured and preened, pompous bastard, acting like his efforts were the source of the project and all she could do was watch in silence otherwise the funding would evaporate.

She clicked unpainted nails on her desktop, mind contemplating. Where would Sophie have taken the little people? Accessing confidential files on the computer, she systematically transferred the video footage onto a flash drive and deleted it from the network, being astute enough to leave no trace of intrusion into the system. She also called up private information about Sophie, memorizing the address before closing out the file. Using her computer, she accessed an internet map of the area and brought it right down to street level of the address she had seen from Sophie’s file. Looking at the old style house with big trees and an expansive yard, she leaned back in her chair. Yes, she decided, that’s where Sophie must be keeping Hans and the others. The question now was, how could she get in there to see? She couldn’t just park across the street and watch, that wouldn’t be suspicious. A private detective? The less people who were aware of the existence of three tiny little men, the less chance the situation could go awry.

She chuckled to herself, shaking her head. Lex parsimoniae, the law of parsimony, all things being equal the simplest solution was usually the right solution. She decided she would keep Sophie late, isolate her and confront her with the video footage and demand to be included. Reduce the variables.

Rising from her chair, she walked over to Sophie’s workstation. “I am going to need you to stay a tiny bit later than normal tonight, we are trying to re-initialize the system to modulate the frequency, and I’m going to need you to re-code the sequencing,” she said.

Sophie nodded, letting out a big sigh once the doctor had turned away, re-coding the sequence was a long tedious job and she knew she wasn’t going to get out of the lab for hours. Her mind drifted back to Theo as she settled in behind her computer and logged in.