Lana’s long, slim fingers crumpled the letter when she has finished reading it.  DARPA was no longer interested in funding her, citing that insufficient progress was being made, and without that the university would stop paying, too.  Her project was coming to an end right when they were on the cusp of beginning animal testing.  Six years of her life flushed down the drain by some bureaucrat who ran out of patience.  She should have been furious, but as usual with her there was very little emotion beyond the initial outburst.  Instead, she immediately started planning some way to continue her research.

With the task they had given her, it would have taken a lesser scientist a decade or more to reach this stage.  The “super-soldier serum,” as they had come to call it around the lab, was no less than a wish list for superpowers.  When injected with it a person would become greatly augmented, with quicker reflexes, more speed and endurance, and the strength of ten men.  In addition to that they would be nearly indestructible, resistant to the strongest blows, poisons, and acids.  Any of those on its own would be a major breakthrough, and she had managed all of them at once.  None of it could be reported without tests, though.

Lana’s dark blue eyes peered out from her office while dropping the crumpled sheet of paper into the trash.  She adjusted her thin, silver-framed glasses and rolled her chair out, making her shoulder length straight black hair bounce.  With a sigh she stood, stretching her long, stockinged legs as far as they could go while she reached her height of six feet and a couple inches.  Quickly she straightened her burgundy corduroy skirt over her slender legs and pulled her black turtleneck tight over her thin frame before walking into the lab proper.

The lab’s stark appearance matched Lana’s skin, though out of sterility than a dislike of the sun.  Everything was scrubbed until it gleamed, and all cabinets stocked and neatly ordered.  Lana’s flats clicked with each step of her long feet on the tile floor as she walked to the far end.  She grabbed a small aluminum box from the top shelf and set it on the counter, cradling it carefully with both hands.  Her thumbs punched in the combination, then popped the latch.  Inside, surrounded by hard foam, was a single vial filled with a thin, light blue liquid.

Lana picked up the vial with trembling fingers and held it to her eyes for inspection.  This one glass tube contained all of the serum they had managed to synthesize, enough for a single dose.  It was just enough for a single dose, which would be enough to make the changes total and permanent.  Carefully she pulled the cork from the mouth, then picked up an injector from the counter with her free hand.  She pointed it straight upward so the feed was toward her and gingerly inserted the serum.  A quiet hiss indicated that it was ready to inject the fluid as soon as enough pressure was applied to the tip.

She looked at the tip, a single pin ready to pierce someone’s skin and fill their veins with the transformational liquid.  Briefly she considered putting it into her own aorta, but she could hardly test its effects on herself.  Not only would that raise many questions about her objectivity, there was the outside chance it might have some harmful side-effects.  If one of those manifested, she would be the best to deal with them.  Ultimately, though, she wanted her name at the top of the paper.

Water rushing from a faucet grabbed her attention, and Lana’s head snapped to see one of her assistants washing glassware in the sink.  She nearly called out to him but thought better of it.  This particular assistant was a small, weak man, both physically and morally, and would not see the value of testing this by any means necessary, let alone being her guinea pig.  It was better not to give him an option and come up with an explanation later.  If she offered him co-authorship, she figured, he’d forgive her when it makes his career.

Lana crept behind him, her footfalls drowned by the sounds from the sink.  She looked down at him and held her breath, working herself up to go through with this.  Slowly she reached for him, waiting for him to present his neck as a wide-open target.  When he stood on his toes to place a beaker on the shelf, she saw the opportunity.  Her hand clamped onto his shoulder, holding him in place, and before he could struggle too much she shoved the injector to his throat.  It made a loud hiss when it discharged its contents.  He went limp and Lana caught him by the armpits, then his head lolled to the side.  For better or worse, it was doing its work.

The last thing I felt before blacking out was a sharp pain in my neck.  I expected to wake up in a pool of my own blood, if at all, but I was perfectly clean with my supervisor standing over me.  Her brow was furrowed in worry, an unusual expression of emotion for her.  Weakly I waved up to her so she’d know I was okay, and she relaxed to her normal placid state.  To my surprise I felt great, healthier and more energized than I had before blacking out.  Eagerly I got back on my feet, itching to get back to work.

When I stood, I was much less excited to resume rinsing out lab equipment.  To start, I was looking up at the brass button at the top of her skirt, and while she was a good bit taller than me our height difference was not quite this extreme.  When I had more time to take in the situation, I realized it was more like a corduroy wall in front of me stretching for a hundred feet on either side before curving around her hips.  Gazing up, it seemed like Lana loomed over me, with several hundred feet between me and her impassive eyes.  She was less the usual tall glass of water and more a towering giantess to me.

“Um, what the hell’s going on?” I asked sheepishly.  If she really was this much bigger than me instead of it being my imagination I wasn’t even sure if she could hear my voice, much less understand what I said.

“Well, that’s a funny story,” Lana started.  Ordinarily her voice was high and mousy, but even that had changed.  Now it was deep and booming, with a distinct rumbling quality I could feel in my bones.  With each moment that passed it seemed less likely this was a hallucination.  “See, I just got told that our project was cancelled, and I didn’t want to just give up, so I tested it out on you to see what would happen and…”

She was rambling, just like she always did when it was time to justify the budget.  “And what?” I pressed.  “Why does it seem like I’m tiny?”  I got to the heart of the matter so there could be no ambiguous explanations or waving off of my concerns.

“A few seconds after I injected you, something happened,” she began.  “Something that I, nor anyone else, could ever have expected, and so we really can’t hold anyone responsible for, but we can’t deny that it happened, now can we?”  As usual, she was doing her best to absolve herself of blame before answering the question.  “There’s a side effect to the serum that only practical application could have revealed.  It changed your body, reducing it greatly in size.  Now, as far as I know, everything else worked as planned, again we haven’t done any tests.  However, you’re now a bit under an inch tall.  Now, I have a hypothesis for why this happened…”

If I let her go she could speak for hours, so I broke in.  “We can investigate your hypothesis later, though I’m not sure you should.  Right now, my main concern is whether you can grow me back to my normal size.”

Lana bit her bottom lip while she thought of how to respond.  Not a good sign.  She leaned down so her face was closer to me, and somehow that was even worse than having her stupendously large body over me.  Her hands were on her knees, as though she were talking to a child, but that was hardly the most humiliating thing about it.  Her round chin was a few inches above me, meaning I had to crane my neck up toward it, and every feature of her face seemed tremendous.  The dark blue eyes I sometimes likened to the ocean were the size of large ponds now, and her button nose was more like a ramp, nostrils noticeably flaring with each breath.  Pink lips nearly twice my size twitched, and though I could see everything like it was under a magnifying glass she still had immaculate skin to me.

“That’s another funny thing.”  Her voice had the same terrible qualities as before but now it was louder, roaring in my ears, and I could feel her hot breath on me.  “No one ever paid to make it reversible, and I don’t think anyone would.  No one’s interested in that, and they specifically wanted this to be permanent, or as permanent as it can be.  And growing you back would be another project on its own, several years, millions of dollars from I don’t even know who, there’s no demand for that sort of thing, and I’m not even sure if reversing the serum would grow you back to begin with.”

“So you’re telling me I’m stuck at this size,” I stated, condensing her wordy explanation down to a sentence.  “Not only that, but you can’t or won’t fix it.”

“That seems unfairly pessimistic,” Lana replied, trying to force a smile.  “You get to be this size!  And you should be effectively immortal, as far as trauma’s concerned!  That doesn’t sound so bad, and you’ll be the focus of dozens of scientific papers as a willing volunteer.  You’ll live forever as the first test subject of this serum, and the first person to be this size!”

I breathed in deeply to steady myself from her speech while trying to process this.  It was an awful lot to take in, in addition to suddenly being the size of an insect.  “So, you’re going to report me as willing regardless,” I stated, working toward building my case.  Lana had already made up her mind, so I was just trying to convince myself.  “That way you’ll deflect from the ethics committee, though it’ll be narrow.  And whether I agree to go through with the tests is unimportant, since I’m not really in a position to decline.  Plus, this can’t be undone, no matter what you or I do.  So I might as well go along, making me a willing volunteer the whole way, so we can both get the credit we’re due.”

Lana’s eyes lit up, and I knew I had perfectly understood the situation.  “That’s right!” she boomed.  “I knew you’d come around soon enough.  Then you’re volunteering as a test subject, right?”

I shrugged.  “Might as well.  It’s not like I’ll die, right?”

“That’s the spirit!”

“But where are you going to do these tests?  Another grad student could walk in on us at any time, and then you’d have a lot more questions to answer.”

“Don’t worry, I thought of that while you were out,” Lana answered, though I was not reassured.  She stood back to her full height, and I felt puny again as I gawped up at her.  Lana cupped her hands in front of me, six inches from the table.  “I’ll conduct the tests in my house.  It’s not exactly a sterile environment, but we don’t need one for these.  In exchange I’ll make sure you’re fed, clean, and cared for.”

“Then let’s get going,” I said, hoping she’d get the hint.

“Let’s.”  Lana remained stock still, leaving me puzzled.  “We can do the first test here, though.  I’ll have to do some conversions to make the measurements accurate, but let me worry about that.  All you need to do is jump into my hands so we can check jumping distance.”

I would never make a jump of roughly thirty feet to me, but I could hardly refuse if she wouldn’t intervene.  Putting doubt out of my mind I sprinted toward her, springing off the edge of the counter.  Remarkably I leapt high and far, almost flying toward Lana’s hands.  To my surprise I landed at the base of Lana’s wrist, then rolled back into her palm.  If I were normal sized, that would double the world record.

Before I could get up Lana brought her other hand toward me, pinching me between her thumb and forefinger.  She lifted me out of her palm and studied me, looking for any breaks or fractures.  Satisfied that I was intact, Lana carried me toward her, and with her free hand she lifted up her skirt.  Carefully she pressed me against the smooth skin of her thigh and tucked me in behind her stocking, leaving just my head exposed.

She pulled the corduroy curtain down over me, then gave it a tap to make sure it was straight.  The world seemed to shift when she took a step, turning and walking toward the lab’s exit.  I started to feel some motion sickness so I looked at her feet, following the colossal pillar I was stuck to down to her burgundy flats.  It would not be a pleasant journey, I knew, but being subjected to her tests would hardly be a walk in the park.  This was merely one of the consequences of signing up to help with such a bizarre experiment.