After Valery had put the three guys back into the sock, against their will obviously, she put it into her bag and the three girls got ready. Valery lent them some of her clothes and they dressed up. It took a while but then they got on their way to Vince’s house. Nervously they stood in front of the door and rang the bell. They waited a couple of minutes and then rang the bell again but no one opened.

“Sorry, I hope you didn’t wait too long. There was some stuff I had to deal with at work”, a rather tall man with grey hair and a for his age quite impressive body stated from behind.

“I’m Gregor Van Mallory, Vince’s father… Wait I’ll let us in”, he said, pulled the keys out of his pocket and opened the door. Together they entered Vince’s house. It was impressive, with a huge living room and a more than decent kitchen they could see from the hallway. They went into the living room where they sat down around a big ebony table.

“Okay… do you have them with you Miss Middleton?” he asked and she pulled out the sock from her bag. Gregor looked at her with a raised eyebrow but his scepticism vanished in a second when he saw the guys Valery picked carefully out of the sock. She put them down on the table and quickly Gregor recognized his son’s friends.

“Fascinating! Fascinating indeed… I mean I’m sorry that this happened to you but the sole fact that it actually worked on human beings is a step for science comparable to the first moon landing… tell me Miss Middleton…where is my son?” he stated.

“I’m sorry Mister Van Mallory…we weren’t able to find him but I can assure you my sister is searching the whole house… it seems he got separated from the others when they tried getting our attention”, Valery replied feeling more than guilty for lying to this gentleman.

“That is more than troubling… At this size we can’t preclude that one of you accidentally stepped on him or that he fell down from a greater height… I guess we can’t hear them talking? Well maybe they can tell us more about Vince’s whereabouts when we got them back to normal…” Gregor said worriedly. The guys felt bad for Vince’s dad as well. They’ve all known him for quite some time as he had helped them with various homework and similar. Nevertheless they were more than happy finally seeing someone who was capable of finally ending this nightmare.

“So you can return them to normal sizes? Oh gosh that would be so great. I can’t wait to slap my brother in the face for being such a stupid moron…” Valery stated and gave Josh a look which told him that he could expect her to actually do that.

“Well with the help of my loving wife and if I manage to get some days off at work, I should be able to build a replica of my machine within maybe 48 hours. But I’ll have to see if I have the parts needed in my lab. Why don’t you join me for that?” Gregor replied and stood up.

“But Miss please, don’t put them back into that sock… it is degrading and I don’t want to see Vince’s friends being treated like that”, he continued. Valery sighed and nodded, carefully grabbing the three guys and held them in her opened hand.

“Ehm Mister Van Mallory? Could I use your bathroom?” Aileen asked.

“Sure it’s the second door to the left on the hallway. We’ll go ahead and I’ll leave the doors unlocked so you can catch up. It’s the door at the other end of the hallway and then just downstairs and through the other doors”, Gregor said while they were walking down the hallway. Aileen nodded thankfully and vanished to the bathroom.

 The others walked to the cellar door. Gregor opened it and they walked down the stairs. Even more doors had to be unlocked until they arrived at a tinted glass door without handle.

“Usually I don’t admit entrance to my home lab, to strangers but I guess I’ll have to make an exception here”, he said and opened it. It swung open and Gregor attempted to walk in when he saw that his wife was in there already with another strange girl.

“Loraine? Why are you here Darling and who is that girl?” he stated obviously confounded by seeing his wife here. Valery and Vanessa walked in as well and turned pale as they saw Corinne. Now they understood why Mister Van Mallory seemed so confounded. Both his wife and Corinne both were naked except for thick knee high sport socks. Corinne’s were red with black stripes on them while Loraine’s were blue with the same stripes in white. Both of them furthermore seemed just as shocked.

“Corinne what the f*** are you doing here? And what do you know about the missing guy’s whereabouts?“ Vanessa exclaimed. The door closed behind them.

“Gregor… this is difficult to explain…” Loraine started but stopped as she didn’t really know what to say. Gregor looked at the lab table she was standing behind and saw some kind of device which resembled the one he built himself and which was supposed to be gone. And then he saw him… trapped beneath a jar was a young man which he recognized as Steven, one of his son’s friends.

Josh, Jared and Darren just stared at the scenario in front of them. They saw the captured steven, the device but what disturbed them the most was the fact that Corinne and Mrs Van Mallory were both naked and stood close next to each other. Loraine was a middle-aged woman, maybe forty-five years old just like Gregor although he was a couple of years older. She was in quite good shape even though she certainly had some flab around her belly, waist and thighs. Her breasts were pretty large and her long open worn dark-blonde hair hid her nipples.

“What is that device Loraine? And why is Steven shrunken and captured in that jar? And why the hell are you two naked?” Gregor stammered obviously overburdened with the situation.

“Gregor… you remember what you always told me back when I was your student?” Loraine asked him. She seemed to slowly grab hold of the situation.

“Everything is not always like it seems… Until you unveiled everything’s secrets…then for you everything will be always like it seems, structured by the laws of physics”, Gregor said on low volume as a suspicion grew in his mind.

Loraine reached out for the device and directed the antenna at the group of people at the door.

Corinne looked Valery in the eyes with a sad expression in her face and then she waved her goodbye.

“What the…” Valery exclaimed when Loraine pressed a button on the device and it made a very uncomfortable high pitched noise. The group at the door got knocked off their feet and started glowing greenly.

“Noooo!” Josh screamed as he saw his sister, her friends and Gregor, who had been supposed to end this nightmare, started glowing greenly and were slowly shrinking. Fortunately Darren, Jared and Josh would not shrink any further but nevertheless they passed out with the rest of the group. 

Steven

Since Steven had been brought to Mrs Van Mallory he had learned a lot about her and Corinne’s plans. But at the same time he also had gone through hell and the only thing that had kept him alive, was the hope that his friends sooner or later would find and rescue him. Now he had to witness how Loraine actively buried his hopes when she shrank down the girls and Gregor. Enraged and frustrated he hit against his glass prison almost breaking the bones in his hands while Loraine was chuckling.

“It worked Corinne! Do you see that? We can shrink whoever we want! It worked!” Loraine exclaimed excitedly. Corinne remained quiet and only gave her an unconvincing nod. She didn’t seem too sure about the situation.

“What is it Cory? You should be as excited as I am right now. Wasn’t this your dream?” Loraine, who noticed that something was wrong with her assistant, asked.

“You shrunk my friends… They’re women…We said we don’t plan on shrinking women and especially these women have accepted and integrated me…” Corinne said.

“Aww Cory… you have me now! I respect you for all your desires and I can give you what you’ve always dreamed about. Aren’t these stupid girls a price you’d willingly pay? I mean they’re a risk. They’ve seen way too much, they now way too much.” Loraine answered.

“Maybe you’re right… but right now I just can’t feel good about it. Give me some time to deal with it.” Corinne said and began picking up the shrunken bodies from the floor. They were all knocked out as expected. Even the already shrunken ones seemed to be asleep. While picking up her former friends she noticed that Aileen was missing. She tried to hide her excitement about that and carefully put the shrunken people into a little box which had a few air-holes in it. Steven noticed this excitement though and wondered what was going through her mind at that moment. A knock on the glass door disrupted his thoughts.

“Mr Van Mallory? The door is locked!” Aileen’s voice sounded from outside the lab. Loraine seemed startled and Corinne sighed. She had hoped Aileen would find a better timing.

“Another girl? Corinne do you know her? Damn the Equalizer will need at least two hours to charge before we can shrink anybody again!” Loraine whispered.

Corinne went to the door and opened it. Aileen seemed rather surprised to see her here.

“Co…Corinne? And ehm… Mrs Van Mallory I guess? Hello… ehm… where are the others?” Aileen stuttered and looked around the lab. She saw the box with air-holes lying next to a strange device and then her eyes locked onto Steven who was still captured in the jar. She took a few steps back. The door fell closed behind her and she almost fell against it.

“Aileen calm down! We can explain this…” Corinne started but was interrupted by Loraine,

“Sorry there is no time for explanations” she said, grabbed Aileen, who still couldn’t handle the situation, by her shoulders and jostled her into a corner. She fell against a shelf with expensive appearing instruments and Loraine quickly grabbed the jar with Steven and the box. Then handed Corinne the box, used her other hand to quickly unlock the lab-door, went through it and pulled Corinne after her. The door closed and locked Aileen inside the lab.

“Corinne? Why? Corinne!” Aileen yelled from the inside.

“F*** this is not going as expected… why did Gregor have to bring all those girls here? “ Loraine stated annoyed as she was while they were walking upstairs.

“Why did we lock her in there? She has a phone and could call the police! And the device is still in there”, Corinne stated.

“Don’t worry. She won’t get a signal down there and the device, if she is even remotely capable of figuring out what it is and how it works, will need to charge 2 hours minimum. Plenty of time to figure out how to deal with her”, Loraine replied. They arrived at the main hallway and took another stairs up to Loraine’s quite luxurious bedroom where Loraine put down the box onto her Queen-sized bed.

“Okay so how invested are you in keeping the little shrunken girls here and that troublemaker in the lab alive?” Loraine asked smilingly while settling on the bed.

Corinne wasn’t able to answer that question…