A few days later, Anna and I are at our local United States Shrinking Postal Service. We walk in to find Lindsay still manning the front desk.

“Hello! Oh, shit. How are you two doing? I hope things are okay for you, I am aware of what happened last time. If you’re looking to travel again, I’m sure my manager could provide you with regular airline fare at no cost to you. We recognize our past mistake and want nothing more than to make up for it.”

Anna looks at me and laughs. “No, that’s not necessary. I was wondering if you could shrink my friend here down to 1/8th of an inch tall and let me bring him back to his place so he could play with me. Is that size okay with you?”

I’m stunned by Anna’s directness and nod. Lindsay is silent, stunned as well.

“Well, that’s not really something we can do, it’s against protocol. Let me call a manager.”

Lindsay picks up her phone and covers the receiver with her hand. Within five seconds, a tall brunette woman comes into the room.

“Hello, my name is Zoe. I am familiar with you two. Lindsay has told me what you requested, but I’m sorry. It’s just not possible. Legally.”

“This company almost killed the both of us. It’s a small favor I’m asking. We didn’t sue. We still can, you know.”

Zoe’s face grows stern. “Come with me.”

The USSPS manager leaves the front desk and walks through a side door, not the one that should lead to the shrinking machine. We follow her to a smaller back room. It’s a tiny mostly white room, not dissimilar to any doctor’s checkup room. Zoe closes and locks the door behind us.

“You cannot tell a soul what I’m about to say. Trust me, you don’t want to. They’re working on a pill that uses nanotechnology or some shit. It’ll shrink you down to whatever size, but it’ll also unshrink you after a certain time. One inch for an hour? Sure. Does Paul Rudd need to be three feet tall for eight hours on the Ant-Man set? Here’s a pill. So far, no side effects. If I give you a couple pills, will you leave us alone? You’ll have to sign some paperwork officially promising not to sue. I can’t believe we haven’t done that already, honestly.”

Anna looks at me with disbelief. “Yes, I promise.”

Zoe half-heartedly smiles. “Two pills only, and you can’t tell a soul. What do you want?”

Anna turns to me shaking her head, mouth agape. I look at Zoe. “Two pills. 1/8th of an inch tall, three days of being shrunk. And give Anna one of them right now. Thanks.”

Anna’s face lights up in anger. “What the fuck, you want to shrink me down? Why? I don’t want that again, idiot. I don’t want to be a tiny speck again.”

I calmly smile at her. “I need you to know what it’s like. Sorry, pal. I will never trust you again unless you understand what you did to me.”

Zoe looks at us as someone that’s over it. She hands me two small pills from a vial in a cabinet.

I pocket the pills. “Also, our laptops and phones didn’t work when we were shrunk. Remember how you lied to us about that? Do you have anything that works at that size?”

Zoe is annoyed. She pulls open a few drawers and pulls out a small capsule. “Inside here is a working laptop with extra battery packs for somewhere around that size. Food and water as well. Just like the capsule you two were shipped in.”

She hands it to me, and I pocket it as well. “Thanks. See, Anna, you can talk to me while you’re tiny this time. Neat, huh?”

“Uh, still not interested.”

“You two figure it out, okay? Please don’t come back here.”

Zoe heads to the back rooms of the USSPS as Anna and I stand together in the lobby, Lindsay quietly sitting at her desk.

“Please wait there a second,” she tells us. Within a couple of minutes, the printer on her desk spits out three sheets. Lindsay hands them to me. “Sign here. It basically says you promise not to sue us. And no more “favors.”  And you’re both barred from all USSPSs across the country.”

I skim the pages and sign quickly. “C’mon, Anna, let’s go.”

“I’m still not cool with any of this,” she tells me.

“We’ll talk about it on the way back to my place.”