Miniaturized military crew:

Captain Lobo Vargas

Commander Carlos Cody

Sergeant Desiderio Diego

Corporal Luis Lopez

Corporal Huan Hangchow

*********************************

Space pirates:

Scrapper

Gator

Slackjaw
***********************************

Normal-sized 21st century characters:

Megan Weiss, 13 years old

Margaret Weiss, Megan’s 35-year-old mother

Holly Krieger, Megan’s 13-year-old best friend

Leila Landa, 13-year-old school-mate of Megan and Holly

Christopher Krieger, Holly’s 16-year-old brother
***************************************

Chapter 1: Thursday, June 26, 3321, the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter

A cloaked, heavily armed warship hid somewhere inside the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. On board were three brothers, all three of them space pirates. Gator was the second oldest of them, the helmsman and astronavigator. Scrapper was the leader despite being the youngest of these three brothers, because he had military experience. Slackjaw was the communications and weapons expert.

“So what’s happening?” Scrapper asked Slackjaw. Gator sat at the piloting console.

“Every space pirate in the asteroid belt is concentrating on that convoy that’s heading toward Earth. Its transponder signal indicates a top-secret military payload.”

“What’s up with this little blip over here?” Scrapper asked, as he looked at the scanner console.

“The transponder says it’s hauling ore to a processing station orbiting Mars,” Slackjaw replied.

“I think that convoy is a decoy,” said Scrapper, “and that freighter hauling ore to Mars might be the ship carrying that new weapon prototype!”

“How can you be sure?”

“Why would a freighter from Titan haul ore through the asteroid belt?”

“You know, he’s got a point!” said Gator from the piloting console.

“Gator,” Scrapper ordered, “bring us around to intercept that freighter!”

“With pleasure!”

“Slackjaw, try to pick up any conversations inside that space freighter with your scanners.”

Meanwhile, in the cockpit of the space freighter, Captain Lobo Vargas sat in the command chair, while Commander Carlos Cody piloted the ship. Sergeant Diego sat twiddling his thumbs as he supervised Corporal Hangchow, who was repairing a conduit in one of the walls of the large cockpit. Corporal Luis Lopez sat at the scanner console.

“Captain Vargas,” Corporal Lopez asked, “what is it we’re hauling in this old rust bucket, anyway?”

“Space Command didn’t specifically tell me to keep it a secret from you guys, so I guess I can tell you. We’re hauling a new type of neutrino dissimilator cannon that was developed on a space station orbiting Titan. It’s supposed to be able to slice through a quantum force field using hyperspatial technology.”

“You guys should be quiet about that,” said Hangchow. “The walls have ears.”

“Oh, nobody’s going to pay attention to us, Hangchow!” said Sergeant Diego. As far as the rest of the solar system is concerned, we’re just another freighter hauling worthless ore to a processing station. Any space pirate in his right mind is guaranteed to ignore us!”

Corporal Lopez looked up from his scanner console. “Hangchow’s right, sir! Pirates could pick up the conversation without our equipment detecting it!”

“Commander Cody laughed and said, “You guys are getting worked up about nothing!”

Scrapper’s pirate ship closed in on the freighter, but Captain Vargas and his crew didn’t detect it because of the sophisticated cloaking device. Scrapper, sitting in the command chair, waited for an update from Slackjaw.

“We’re within radio range, Scrapper! But we’re too far to engage the freighter with our weapons system.”

“Slackjaw,” said Scrapper, “open an audio-visual channel to the captain of that vessel!”

In the cockpit of the freighter, Corporal Cody picked up the signal from Scrapper’s ship.

“Captain, we’re being hailed!”

Put it on the forward view-screen,” Captain Vargas ordered. “I didn’t expect any radio contact with Space Command this early in our mission!”

“The transmission isn’t from Space Command, sir,” said Corporal Lopez. “It’s coming from a nearby cloaked vessel, but I can’t pinpoint its location!”

“Put it on the main screen!” Vargas ordered.

Just then, an image of Scrapper, Slackjaw, and Gator filled the main forward view-screen. Captain Vargas stood up in utter amazement and whispered, “Scrapper?”

“Lobo Vargas?” said Scrapper. “I didn’t expect you to be in command of this vessel. It’s because of you that I was sent to that prison colony on Triton. Now I have two reasons to kill you!”

“There’s nothing of value on this freighter-” said Vargas, but he was cut off by Scrapper.

“Can the alibi, Vargas! I’ve got your entire conversation with your junior crew members describing the weapon prototype in vivid detail. Would you like me to play back the recording?”

“Corporal,” said Captain Vargas, “close channel, shields up!”

Corporal Lopez did as Captain Vargas ordered, and the cockpit of Scrapper’s ship disappeared from the main forward view-screen.

Scrapper's ship fired weapons.

"Captain, our freighter has sustained damage!" said Commander Cody. "Another hit like that, and we're through!"

“Commander, set a course through temporal space, then phase back and forth between hypertime and temporal space, it’ll be harder for Scrapper to track us!”

“Yes sir! It should take about thirty seconds!”

“We don’t have thirty seconds, commander! Activate the phase initiators now, that’s an order!”

Back on Scrapper’s ship, Slackjaw informed Scrapper that they were in firing range of the freighter.

“Hit them with about ten warheads, that ought to wake them up!”

Slackjaw fired the warheads, and the freighter was rocked with explosions. The shields held up until the last warhead hit. The shields were breached just as the freighter entered hypertime.

“We scored a direct hit with that last warhead,” said Slackjaw. “They must’ve phased into another continuum. If they entered hyperspace, there’s no way to track them. Either way, we caused a lot of damage!”

“Slackjaw, I want you to scan every trans-dimensional continuum for traces of their ship. I won’t be satisfied until Vargas is dead!”

“That might take time,” said Slackjaw, “but we should be able to track them down eventually. So far, I'm not picking up anything in any of continuums used by space command.”

“Time,” Scrapper muttered. “That’s the ticket! Scan temporal space, Slackjaw!”

Meanwhile, on the space freighter, Commander Cody was frantic. “Captain, we’re trapped in a dimensional flux pattern and we can’t break free! The direct hit we sustained damaged the phase initiators! We keep shifting back and forth between hyperspace and hypertime. If we don’t return to normal space before our power source is drained, we’ll end up ripped apart!

“Diego,” said Captain Vargas, “can you and Lopez come up with something? The two of you are the engineers of this operation!”

“I’ve got one option,” said Diego, “but it depends on whether or not we can get the dissimilator cannon online and functional.”

“I have the access codes to get it working,” Vargas replied. “Why? What’s your plan?”

“I say we jettison the main reactor, hold it in place with a tractor beam, and with a second tractor beam, we jettison the dissimilator cannon, and use it to shrink the ship with us on board. If we use the deflector shields to contain the neutrino dissimilator cannon, it should shrink along with us. With our decreased mass, the larger reactor should have enough power to return us to normal space.”

“You’re on!” said Captain Vargas. “Let’s do it!”

After the main reactor was jettisoned and held in place by a tractor beam, the cargo bay was opened, and the neutrino dissimilator cannon was jettisoned. A second tractor beam was used to hold it in place. Captain Vargas gave the command codes to Corporal Lopez to activate the dissimilator cannon, then he gave the order to activate it. The entire freighter along with the neutrino dissimilator cannon had decreased in size, weight, volume, and mass instantly. The reactor remained at normal size.

“We’re nine-sixteenths of an inch tall, captain!” said Corporal Lopez.

“Return us to normal space, Commander Cody!”

Soon the blackness of temporal space was replaced by a view of the Earth on the view-screen.

“We did it!” said Sergeant Diego announced. “We’re back in normal space near Earth!”

“Uh, captain?” said Corporal Lopez. According to my scanners, the positions of the planets and the constellations indicate that we’re in the 21st century. June 12th or 13th, 2008, to be exact. All that time in a hypertime shot us thirteen centuries into the past! Luckily, the navigation computer kept us on a trajectory that would take us into Earth orbit.”

“That’s only the half of it!” said Commander Cody. “We’ve entered the Earth’s gravity well! We’re heading on a course that will take us down near the coast of California!”

Meanwhile, back in the 34th century, Scrapper and his brothers were trying to figure out what happened to Captain Vargas.

"I picked up a neutrino signature in temporal space," said Gator, "but not enough to warrant a full-size ship!"

"Do you think they're shifting back and forth between temporal space and another continuum?" Scrapper asked.

"Like what?" Gator asked.

"Check hyperspace and hypertime and see if anything materialized there within the past couple of minutes."

Gator did as Scrapper instructed. "Yep! I detected a neutrino stream there! It had to be Vargas's freighter!"

Scrapper took a look at Gator's equipment. "Based on this trajectory, it looks like they are traveling backwards through time by journeying through hypertime! By shifting back and forth through hyperspace and hypertime, wherever or whenever they're heading, they'll get there a lot faster!"

"Let's follow them!" said Gator.

"Yeah!" said Slackjaw.

"If these read-outs are accurate," said Scrapper, "then Vargas and his freighter are stuck in a dimensional flux pattern. If we don't want to suffer the same fate, we need to get into a trajectory in orbit around the sun and reach a third of light speed before we breach temporal space, then follow the sun’s gravitational signature into the past. We're going to have to use our cryo-tubes and go into suspended animation! It'll take us a long time to get to the same destination as Vargas, but when we get there, we'll be the same age we are now!"

"Why don't we travel through hypertime?" gator asked.

"If we tried to enter hypertime," said Scrapper, "we could end up trapped in a dimensional flux pattern just as Vargas has done. My solution will take longer, but we'll get there!"

“The cryo-tubes are ready, Scrapper!” said Slackjaw.

“How close can we get to the time Captain Vargas emerges into normal space?” Scrapper asked.

“We should arrive less than a week after they do,” Slackjaw replied, “maybe a day or two after if we’re lucky.”

“Take us into temporal space!” said Scrapper.

Back in the 21st century, Vargas and his crew had their own problems. “Diego!” Captain Vargas ordered, “Pull the cannon back into the cargo bay and close it, then drain all on-board weapons batteries and divert all power into the inertia dampeners! We’re in for a rough ride!”

"We now stand less than an inch tall!" said Diego. "Are you sure you want us to divert all power from our weapons systems? We'll be defenseless!"

"Don't argue with me, Diego!" shouted Vargas. "Just do it!"

"Yes sir!" Diego replied.

About that time in Bullet Bay, a small town on the central coast of California, a girl named Megan who got up to get a drink of water in the middle of the night saw the miniaturized ship from her living room window, and assumed it was a meteorite. She didn’t suspect that what she saw streaking across the sky and slamming into a local hillside would affect her destiny!

To Be Continued!

Chapter 2: Friday, June 13th, 2008, 3:00 P.M.

Megan Weiss was walking home from school with her friend Holly Krieger, who was carrying a large present with her to Megan's house. Both girls were carrying their 7th grade yearbooks.

"You're so lucky!" said Holly. "Your birthday fell on the last day of school this year, and it's Friday the thirteenth! That's so cool!"

"I wonder how many people have celebrated their thirteenth birthday on Friday the thirteenth?" said Megan. "Maybe there should be a club for that at Yahoo or something."

Megan had dark blonde hair just past her shoulders, and gray eyes. Holly had long blonde hair tied into twin braids. Holly was Megan's best friend, and they had known each other since grade school.

"Two different boys wrote in my yearbook that you and me are the cutest girls at our junior high school!" said Holly.

"Were they cute?" Megan asked.

"Yeah," Holly replied.

"One guy wrote that I should end up becoming a famous actress in my yearbook," Megan replied. "But I think I want to join the military, like my Dad."

"That's cool," said Holly. "My older sister is in ROTC at UCLA."

"So what did you get me?" Megan asked as they turned up the walkway leading to Megan's front door.

"It's a surprise!" Holly replied.

Once inside, the girls were greeted by Megan's mother. "Just put that present over there," Mrs. Weiss instructed. "So, who wants pizza?"

Both girls said "I do!"

Mrs. Weiss pulled out the phone book, and asked the girls, "What kind of pizza do you want?"

"Order from Vito's, mom!" Megan said. "The pizza sauce is from an old family recipe, and Holly's older brother Chris works there!"

"So I see!" Mrs. Weiss said with a smile on her face, "Is Chris cute?"

"Mom, it's not like that," Megan said, "Chris is gay! He's cute, but he wouldn't be interested in me even if I was the hottest chick on the planet!"

After Mrs. Weiss ordered the pizzas, she looked toward Holly and said, "Let's sing 'Happy Birthday' to Megan!"

"Mom, that song is copyrighted!" said Megan.

"I'm sure whoever owns the copyright won't mind," said Mrs. Weiss.

"Mom, I'm totally serious, I don't want you guys singing 'Happy Birthday' to me this year! It's a childish ritual, and it would totally embarrass me!"

"Okay," said Mrs. Weiss, "you're the birthday girl, so it's your decision. I guess that means it's time to open your presents, then we can cut the cake."

When Megan opened her first present, the one from Holly, it was a microscope.

"Thanks, Holly!" Megan said.

"Holly," Mrs. Weiss said, "that looks like an expensive gift! I don't think we can reciprocate something like that!"

"Oh, don't worry, Mrs. Weiss!" Holly said. "My dad works for a company that manufactures medical equipment, and he got it dirt cheap!"

Mrs. Weiss got up and got a small present from a shelf in the living room, and brought it to the table. She handed it to Megan, who unwrapped it to find a silver dollar from the turn of the century. It was in excellent condition.

"Wow, mom! It's from 1903! That's the year the Wright brothers made their historic flight at Kittyhawk!"

"It's also the year Harley Davidson was founded! It belonged to my grandmother, and she handed it down to me. She instructed me to hand it down to my granddaughter, but I'm giving it to you, instead. It supposedly brought her good luck!"

Megan turned to look at Holly. "I was named after my mom's grandmother, that's who she's talking about. She was from Wales. On her deathbed she made me promise never to let anyone call me Meg, to always go by Megan, because it's a proud Welsh name. I swore to her that I would always honor that." Megan turned to at her mother. "Mom, if this coin is good luck, and great-grandma Megan told you to give it to your granddaughter, maybe you should hold onto it until I have kids!"

"What if you only have boys? She was senile in her later years, and I see it as an irrational demand. If you want, you can make up for it by giving it to your great-granddaughter, because that's who would've ended up with it anyway if the coin kept skipping a generation."

"I guess I could do that," said Megan.

Megan opened her next present, it was a laminated Megadeth concert ticket from 1987.

"That was the ticket to the concert where I met your father in Pismo Beach, in 1987!" said Mrs. Weiss. "I had it laminated. I figured you're old enough to take care of it."

Megan turned to Holly and said, "My Mom and dad met at a Megadeth concert in 1987, and my mom's parents met at a Doors concert at the Cow Palace in 1969!"

The next gift was a digital stopwatch. "Cool!" said Megan. "I can practice my mile. I'm already under six minutes!"

The next gift was a pair of loaded dice from Megan's Uncle Sam.

"I already have a pair of dice like these, Mom," said Megan.

Margaret took the dice from her daughter and looked at them. "Not like these ones, Megan, your other ones are regular dice. These are loaded dice, they always come up either 7 or 11. I wish my brother wouldn't buy you stuff like this!"

Megan took the dice out of the package and rolled them. One landed on five, and the other on two.

"How do they work?" Megan asked, turning the dice over in her hands. "One of these dice only has 5's on all six sides, and the other has three 6's and three 2's!"

"Just remember, it's dangerous to cheat people at gambling," said Margaret. "Only use these if you're taking turns at something and you want to go first, never bet people money or anything valuable with these, okay?"

"Okay, Mom!" said Megan.

There was a card with a $100 dollar bill inside from Megan's mother, as well as some other gift cards from other relatives who had mailed them to Megan.

After Megan opened up her other presents, Holly's brother Chris drove toward Megan's house, to deliver the pizzas. Chris worked for Vito, an immigrant from Sicily who had opened his own pizza parlor in Bullet Bay, the small central coast town Megan and her two friends lived in. In spite of making pizzas in the American style, Vito prided himself on his homemade pizza sauce, which was an old Sicilian family recipe.

Chris rang the doorbell, and Mrs. Weiss let him in. He set the pizzas on the dining room table and said, "That'll be thirty-three dollars and twenty-one cents, Mrs. Weiss."

Mrs. Weiss wrote him a check and gave it to him, then handed him a five dollar bill. "Here's your tip!"

"Thanks!" said Chris, pocketing the money. "It's too bad Vito's gonna end up with this money!"

"What do you mean?" said Mrs. Weiss.

"Vito repays me for my gas money out of my tips, and he pockets the rest."

"You're kidding me! I gave you that tip, and that's your money! It's not for Vito! Can't you just tell him that I didn't tip you?"

"I tried that once when a guy tipped me twenty bucks. Vito got suspicious and actually called the guy and asked him how much he tipped me. Vito made me cough up the money. He'll probably call you later tonight and ask you how much you tipped me. He does that to most of his customers. Whatever you do, don't tell him I told you that!"

"That's a unique dilemma you've found yourself in." said Mrs. Weiss.

"It's a living, I know people who have harder jobs than mine. I like the routine." Chris replied.

"Would you like to stay and have a couple of slices with us?" Mrs. Weiss asked.

"Sure!" said Chris, and he sat down at the table and took a slice.

"Chris," said Megan, "what would Vito say if he knew you were eating pizza with a customer?"

"Vito always charges me for any pizza I eat at the pizza parlor, but if someone offers me some for free, and it was paid for, there's nothing he can do about it."

"I just didn't want you to get in trouble," said Megan.

As Megan and Chris tore into their pizza, Holly said, "My brother's going out for football this year. In the Fall, he's going to be a junior!"

"Oh really?" Mrs. Weiss said, as she took a slice of pizza.

"Guess what, you guys?" said Megan. "I got up to get a drink of water in the middle of the night, and I saw a meteorite crash into the hills close to my house!"

"It probably looked like it crashed nearby," Chris said, "but it could've crashed in Arizona or some place!"

"No, I heard it!" Megan said. "It sounded like a Volkswagen engine exploding!"

"Well if you heard it land," Chris replied, "then it's probably close. You should go look for it!"

"Do you guys want to come help me find it?" Megan asked. "We could go look for it as soon as we finish our pizza!"

About an hour later, Chris drove Megan and Holly to the woods.

"Can you tell if we're hot or not?" Megan asked.

"What?" Chris asked.

"You're gay, but can you tell when girls are hot?" Megan asked.

"Yes, but I feel no attraction, like I do with guys," Chris replied.

In the woods not far from Megan's house, Captain Vargas and his crew were raising the miniaturization weapon above the cargo bay so Sergeant Diego and Corporal Lopezz could work on it. Each of them were about the same height; about nine-sixteenths of an inch tall.

"It took us all last night and all day to cut through the cargo bay door to get to the shrink-ray," Captain Vargas told Sergeant Diego. "How long will it take you to get the neutrino assimilator online so we can return to normal size?"

"It doesn't look good," Sergeant Diego replied. "I'd say it should probably take me about eight to ten hours."

"Commander Cody says we landed near a residential area," Captain Vargas said. "I hope nobody snoops through these woods and finds us!"

Meanwhile, Chris had met up with Megan and Holly and had given them a ride to the woods, then returned to making his deliveries. Megan and Holly were making their way into the outer perimeter of the woods where the miniaturized time travelers were.

"Do you think you can narrow it down where you saw the meteorite crash?" Holly asked Megan.

"I think I can take us to within a couple of hundred yards of where it is," Megan said.

Back at the wrecked starship, Diego was putting the finishing touches on a lever connected to the miniaturization device.

"What's the point of that lever?" Vargas asked. "It's as tall as we are!"

"I designed it so when the first of us is normal-sized, he can use the lever to un-shrink the rest of us. Right now, all it does is activate the shrink-ray. I also programmed the display screen of the sizing scope to be big enough so it's convenient for a normal-sized person to read."

"So you'll have the neutrino assimilator online some time after midnight tonight?" Captain Vargas asked.

"That's the plan!" replied Sergeant Diego.

"Look!" Commander Cody shouted, and Captain Vargas turned to see a two normal-sized girls in their early teens entering the small clearing where the crash-site was.

The two girls stopped, and as they surveyed the situation, Vargas and his crew split up and ran off in different directions. Their quick movements caught the eyes of the girls, and Megan said, "Little people!"

"Let's get 'em!" Holly said.

"Yeah!" Megan agreed.

Megan was drawn to the black ray-gun that was propped up above the cargo bay of the shrunken starship. She drew closer, and picked it up.

"No!" Diego shouted, but he was quickly engulfed in Holly's fist.

Megan turned over the device in her hands, and noticed the small lever on one side. Megan instinctively knew the device was a weapon, so she pointed it at a boulder and threw the lever. The boulder was swiftly reduced to the size of a small pebble, and Megan returned the lever to the 'OFF' position.

"Its a shrink-ray!" Megan said, and she knelt down and picked up the miniaturized rock. Holly had captured all five of the miniaturized astronauts, and they now drew their attention to Megan.

"Are you serious?" Holly asked.

"Yes," Megan replied, "I just shrunk a boulder the size of a basketball down to the size of a marble! How many little people did you catch?"

"I caught five," Holly answered.

"Are there any more out here?" Megan asked.

"I don't see any more," Holly replied. "But even if there are, I doubt our captives would tell us."

"Let's get them and this shrink-ray back to my bedroom!" said Megan.

"Should we take this space-ship with us?" Holly asked.

"It's too heavy," Megan replied. "Let's just leave it here, and we can come back and get it some other time. Your brother can help us retrieve it with his car."

"You could shrink it!" Holly said.

"I don't want to," Megan replied. "I don't even know if this shrink-ray has a reverse on it, and I don't want to risk damaging something valuable that might be inside the space-ship."

The two of them started off back toward Megan's house; Holly had the captives cupped gently within her closed hands.

"This is starting out to be the coolest summer vacation ever!" Megan said.

"The only bad thing for me is I have to go to summer school!" Holly said. "And it starts this Monday! They don't even cut us a break!"

"I was supposed to go to summer school, too!" Megan said. "But I threw away the notice that came in the mail, and my mom never found out I was supposed to go!"

"Typical Megan!" Holly said. "You're always getting away with something!"

"My English teacher was supposed to be Mr. Sorenson," said Megan.

"Hey, I have him too!" said Holly.

When the girls got back to Megan's, Mrs. Weiss was busy in the kitchen, so Megan and Holly snuck into Megan's room without showing her what they'd found. Megan set the shrink-ray on the shelf of her desk, and instructed Holly to set the captives on the desk.

"Now," Megan said, addressing the five miniaturized captives, "who are you, and where did you come from?"

Captain Vargas stepped forward. "I am Captain Lobo Vargas, and I and my crew are from the 34th century. This is Commander Cody, Sergeant Diego, Corporal Lopez, and Corporal Hangchow."

"There was a band called Commander Cody," Megan replied. "They have a song called Hot Rod Lincoln, my dad loves that song. So how did you get shrunk?"

"We were attacked by space pirates," Vargas explained, "and we were caught in a dimensional flux pattern that simultaneously catapulted us back in time to your century, and we had to shrink down to a fraction of our size to return to normal space!"

"What's a dimensional flux pattern?” Megan asked.

"I can explain that later," Vargas said, "right now I need one of my engineers to reprogram that shrink ray-gun you found so it'll only work when it detects your unique chromosome pattern!"

"I don't want to let you near that shrink-ray," Megan replied, "because you might use it to re-enlarge yourselves!"

"The assimilation function doesn't even work right now, so we can't return to normal size! But right now, there are space pirates after that shrink ray-gun, and they won't hesitate to kill you in order to get it!"

"I think you should listen to him, Megan!" Holly said. "It's worth the risk! You should let them fix the shrink-ray so you'll be the only one who can use it!"

"Okay," Megan said, "I'll let you do it. Just tell me what you need me to do!"

Somewhere in deep space, Scrapper’s warship emerged from temporal space. The onboard mainframe computer awakened the three space pirates from cryo-sleep.

“Status?” Scrapper asked.

“We’re in the 21st century,” said Gator. “But we’re really far from Earth.”

“Lock onto a trajectory that will take us to Earth, and take us into hyperspace,” said Scrapper.

Back on Earth, Diego was finishing up with Vargas's plan to reprogram the shrink-ray so only Megan could use it. "And that's it!" Diego said.

"You are now the only one who can operate the shrink-ray device!" Vargas said.

"Here, Holly," Megan said, handing her the shrink ray-gun. "Try to use it on something!"

Holly aimed it at Megan's trash can and flipped the lever, but nothing happened.

"Now give it to me," Megan said.

Megan pointed it at the trash can and fired, and the trash can was reduced to less than an inch high. Megan returned the lever to the 'OFF' position.

"Cool!" Megan said.

At that exact moment, in Earth orbit, the Warhawk emerged from hyperspace.

"We are within 24 hours of the time they emerged into normal space," Slackjaw informed Scrapper. "According to the positions of the planets and constellations, we've arrived on June 13th, 2008.”

"Excellent," Scrapper replied. "Do a quick orbit, and keep the scanners on the look-out for a nuclear fusion reactor. That technology did not exist in this era, so it could only be coming from Vargas's ship!"

After a quick orbit, Slackjaw said: "Neutrino emissions coming from a coastal area in California."

"Take us down and land about a hundred yards away."

The Warhawk landed in the woods where Captain Vargas and his crew had crashed. Scrapper, Slackjaw, and Gator disembarked and headed to the crash-site. Slackjaw held a scanning device in his hand that directed them to what was left of the miniaturized starship.

"No life signs," Slackjaw reported.

Scrapper knelt down and examined the damaged cargo bay. "The weapon isn't here!"

"There's footprints!" Gator said as he pointed at the ground. "There's more than one pair! Someone must've found Vargas and captured him!"

Scrapper stood up and said, "Then that means they have the shrink-ray! This complicates things! Gator, when we get back to the ship, launch a cloaked satellite into geosynchronous orbit above this position. If and when this person activates the shrink-ray, we'll be able to pinpoint their position by detecting neutrino emissions the first time they use it!"

To Be Continued!

Chapter 3: Saturday, June 14th, 2008

The next day, Holly came over to Megan's house. She wanted Megan to use the shrink-ray on someone.

"You should use it on my brother's boss Vito," Holly said, "he's a jerk!"

"I'd have no way of getting over there," Megan said. "We need to find a way for someone to come to us!"

"You could prank call a pizza to be delivered a couple of blocks away," said Holly, "and hide the next house over. Then you could shrink the driver!"

“That actually does sound like a good plan,” said Megan.

"You'd better shrink his car, too!" Holly advised, "That way, there's no evidence!"

Megan pulled out her cell-phone but Holly stopped her. "Cell-phone calls can be traced! We have to use a payphone!"

Since it was Saturday, Mrs. Weiss didn't have to work, so Megan had her mom drop her and her two friends off in town. After Mrs. Weiss left, Megan found a payphone and ordered a pizza to be delivered to a nearby house.

"Don't order too much pizza," Holly advised, "Or it will look like a prank call."

"Yes, I'd like an extra-large pizza with sausage and mushrooms," Megan said into the phone. When she was done ordering, she told her friends, "It'll be here in twenty-five minutes!"

The girls hid between two houses that were one house away from the address Megan had given over the phone. Holly and Megan periodically checked the time as they waited. Megan pulled out the shrink ray device from her pink and blue backpack when the time drew near.

"Here he comes!" said Holly, pointing at a car with a pizza sign attached to the roof. When the car pulled over and the man got out with the pizza, the girls approached him.

"Extra-large sausage and mushroom?" Megan asked.

"You got it!" the young man replied, handing the pizza to Megan. Megan motioned to Holly, and she took the pizza.

"How much do I owe you?" Megan asked, as she pointed the shrink ray at the pizza delivery driver. Megan flipped the lever, reducing him to about the same height as Captain Vargas. Megan then pointed the shrink-ray at the car, reducing it to the same proportionate size as the driver, then flipped the lever to the 'OFF' position,.

Back in the woods not far from Megan's house, on board the Warhawk, all the alarms went haywire.

"Scrapper!" Slackjaw yelled out, "Someone used the miniaturization weapon! They fired it twice!"

Scrapper stood behind Slackjaw, and said, "Use the satellite to focus on whoever is using it!"

An image of Bullet Bay, California appeared on the screen, and the camera closed in until Megan and her friend could be clearly seen.

"She's just a girl!" Scrapper said. "Keep her under surveillance until you see where she lives. I want her address!"

Megan's mom picked Megan and her friends up after Megan had called her on her cell-phone. After pulling up in the driveway, the girls and Mrs. Weiss got out and went inside. Scrapper, Slackjaw, and Gator observed this from the Warhawk.

"Slackjaw," Scrapper said, "hack into the Internet and get me everything on the name 'Weiss' at this address in Bullet Bay, California!"

Meanwhile, Megan and Holly piled into Megan's bedroom and closed the door. Megan pulled the shrink ray device out of her backpack and set it on her shelf, and pulled out the miniaturized pizza car out of a separate compartment, and set it on her desk. The pizza guy was inside the car, afraid to come out. Megan tapped on the door, and he opened it and stepped out.

"What should I do with him?" Megan asked.

"I think you should swallow him!" Holly said. "Or you could shrink him to micro-size and look at him through your new microscope!"

"Can people survive at that size?" Megan asked.

"Ask the shrunken space guy," Holly said.

Megan dumped out the box containing the five captives from the future. Megan addressed Captain Vargas. "If I shrink someone down to microscopic size, will he survive?"

"The miniaturization weapon you have was designed as a humane alternative to the destructive weapons of the past. It genetically modifies its targets so they can survive at any size! Shrunken people are effectively immortal, they don't need food or water."

"Cool!" Megan said. "I want to create a shrunken city that fits on a microscope slide! I think I'll call it Microtopia!"

Meanwhile, back at the Warhawk, Slackjaw found some useful information. "Scrapper, her name is Megan Weiss, and she's enrolled in summer school at the local junior high school. She's supposed to start this Monday!"

"Excellent!" said Scrapper. "I can pose as one of her teachers, and ask her about the device!" Scrapper turned his head and addressed the computer. "Computer! Provide me with identification and credentials so I can pass myself off as a teacher, as well as a working cell phone according to this time period!"

A replication console normally used for food and beverages produced the paperwork Scrapper requested.

"Computer," Scrapper said, "show me the names, photos, and addresses of teacher of Megan Weiss."

On the main computer monitor, three images appeared, two women and one man.

"I think I'll take over this guy's position," Scrapper said, pointing at the man. "Computer, print out his name and address." Scrapper turned his head toward Slackjaw and Gator. "I'm going over there right now. Slackjaw, get me that mind control device from the storage area! I want you two to come with me!"

It took nearly twenty minutes to reach the town, and a man in town informed them it would be another twenty minutes before the RTA bus arrived.

"That teacher lives close by," Scrapper told Slackjaw and Gator, "but we're going south first to score some transpo, to a city called Santa Maria. Before we left, I had the computer replicate one of these," Scrapper showed them a credit card. "I created a fake account, and by the time the feds figure it out, we'll be long gone with the shrink-ray prototype. I have a device that can siphon fractions of a penny from tens of millions of accounts, so nobody will know they've been robbed until it's too late!"

Scrapper's plan worked, and soon the three of them were sitting on brand-new Harley-Davidsons.

"Kind of reminds me of Martian rocket bikes!" Scrapper said. They revved up their engines, and headed north.

In a neighborhood in suburban Arroyo Grande, three motorcyclists pulled up and parked on the front yard of an older man, a teacher named Mr. Sorenson. When Scrapper rang the doorbell, Mr. Sorenson's Lhasa Apso started yapping, and the elderly teacher answered the door.

On the porch stood three men who looked like they wouldn't look out of place in a biker bar. From their collars to their boots they appeared to be wearing black leather (it was actually a synthetic material a thousand times stronger), and the man who appeared to be their leader asked, "Are you Richard Sorenson?"

"Yes," the teacher replied, and Scrapper lifted a silver-colored metallic device to his face.

"Say cheese!" Scrapper said, and within three seconds, the transaction was complete, and Slackjaw and Gator carried the man to a recliner in his living room. When Slackjaw and Gator had returned, Scrapper held up the small mind control device.

"All of his knowledge, and every memory he ever had has been suppressed. He won't be able to access his memories for many years!"

The three space pirates headed back toward their motorcycles. "What now?" Slackjaw asked.

"We go get a motel, I'm going to need an address if I'm going to get hired as one of Megan's teachers!"

To Be Continued

Chapter 4: Monday, June 16th, 2008

Monday morning dawned, and Scrapper sat at a table in the motel room where he and his two brothers were staying. He looked though a genealogy file on a portable computer that was linked to the Warhawk. He saw something that concerned him.

“Slackjaw, Gator, come here!”

The other two space pirates walked over to where Scrapper was.

“According to this genealogy file, Megan Weiss is our direct ancestor. If we kill her and take the weapon prototype, we would cancel ourselves out!”

“Maybe you could use that to your advantage to get her on your side,” said Slackjaw. “If she knows you’re her descendant, she might cooperate with you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Scrapper replied. “It’s always good to have an extra ace up my sleeve. There's something else I found out, something I might be able to use to my advantage."

"What?" Slackjaw and Gator asked in unison.

"Megan's grandparents met at a concert in 1969, and her parents met at a concert in 1987."

"How can you use that to your advantage?" Slackjaw asked.

"According to our files, there will be a concert of local bands at the local grange hall this Friday night. I can convince Megan that she will meet her future husband there! Then, the two of you can take the shrink ray from her while I'm out on a date with her mother! I can bring up a map of this local area, so you guys will know where to go."

"Did she really meet her future husband there?" Slackjaw asked.

"No!" said Scrapper. "Of course not! But I can lead her to think she will!"

Nearly an hour later, Scrapper pulled up to the local junior high school on his Harley Davidson. He went in, and introduced himself to the staff.

"It's my understanding that you need a new English teacher?" Scrapper asked. "From what I've heard, Richard Sorenson suffered some kind of a stroke."

"Is that true?" the woman behind the desk asked. "If he doesn't come in today, we'll be short staffed. So you're a teacher?"

"Yes, I have a master's degree in English composition from Berkeley." Scrapper replied, handing her the relevant paperwork.

After calling Richard Sorenson's home, she verified that he had suffered a medical emergency, and accepted Scrapper as a new recruit.

Meanwhile, at the Weiss residence, Mrs. Weiss was getting ready for work. While still in her bathrobe, a co-worker showed up at her home and rang the doorbell.

"Joseph?" Mrs. Weiss asked. "What brings you here?"

"Margaret, I just wanted to know if you wanted to go out on a date this Friday night," said Joseph.

"Sorry, you're just not my type," Mrs. Weiss answered.

"What's your type?" Joseph asked.

"My daughter's father is a United States Marine, he's missing in action in the middle east." Mrs. Weiss replied. "You look more like a shady car salesman."

"Is there any way I can be his equal in your eyes?" Joseph asked.

"Yes, gain thirty pounds of muscle and lose sixty pounds of fat." said Mrs. Weiss, as she closed the door.

Later that morning, Holly made her way to her classroom for summer school. She sat down with about twelve other students. When Scrapper entered the classroom, she was surprised.

"Where's Mr. Sorenson?" Holly asked.

"He had some kind of a stroke, I'm Mr. Scrapper, his replacement."

"Mr. Sorenson ran 5 k's all the time, he was the picture of perfect health!" said Holly.

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Scrapper replied, "but in the meantime, does anyone know where Megan Weiss is at? She's enrolled in this class."

Holly tried to lay low, but a boy in the class raised his hand, and Scrapper called on him. "Holly Krieger is Megan's best friend," the boy said, as he pointed at Holly. “If anyone knows where she is, it's Holly."

"Is that true. Ms. Krieger?" Scrapper asked. "Are you Megan's best friend?"

"Yes, but I don't know where she is." Holly replied.

"Then maybe I need to make a house call," said Scrapper.

Meanwhile, at the state lottery office, Mrs. Weiss arrived after making a delivery of lottery tickets to one of the stores. Her co-worker Joseph approached her, and said, "Margaret, you sure look different than you did when I saw you in your bath robe this morning!"

Margaret Weiss cringed as she imagined what her co-workers were thinking at what Joseph had implied.

After school ended that day, Holly ran to Megan's house right away. When Megan answered the door, Holly said, "Mr. Sorenson had a stroke, and there was a substitute teacher there for the English class. He was asking about you! He said he was going to come over to your house!"

Just then. Megan's mother pulled up in the driveway. As she was getting out of the car, Scrapper pulled up on his motorcycle.

"Can I help you?" Mrs. Weiss asked.

"Yes, I'm Mr. Scrapper, your daughter Megan's English teacher. I was concerned when your daughter wasn't in school today."

"My daughter is on summer break," Mrs. Weiss replied.

"She has summer school," said Scrapper. "Her friend Holly was there, but Megan wasn't."

"Megan!" Mrs. Weiss shouted.

Megan and Holly exited the front door.

"Did you ditch summer school today?" Mrs. Weiss asked.

"Mom, English was the only class I didn't pass, I'm much better at math! You know how much I hate reading and writing!"

"That's not the point!" said Mrs. Weiss. "You need an education! You can't just take math classes, life doesn't work that way!"

Just then, Joseph, the co-worker of Mrs. Weiss, showed up. He got out of his car and headed toward Mrs. Weiss and Scrapper.

"Can we talk about this over coffee?" Mrs. Weiss asked Scrapper.

"Sure!" Scrapper replied.

Joseph approached Mrs. Weiss and asked, "So who is this guy?"

"He's a biker," Mrs. Weiss replied, "I'm dating him!" Margaret Weiss turned to Megan. "We'll discuss your punishment later, Megan."

Margaret Weiss and Scrapper got into Margaret’s car, and she drove to a nearby coffee shop. They went in and waited in line. When Margaret got to the counter, she ordered a drink, then watched as Scrapper ordered his drink and pulled out his debit card.

“Can I use my card to get some Bobs?” Scrapper asked.

“Excuse me?” the woman behind the counter asked.

“Paper Bobs?” scrapper asked again.

“Do you want cash back?” the cashier asked. “Just key in your password and hit cash back in the screen.”

“Bobs?” Margaret asked. “Did you mean bills?”

Scrapper snapped his fingers. “That’s it! I knew it was a man’s name that started with a B.”

After they ordered their drinks, they sat down at a table.

“You really did me a solid getting me away from Joseph, my co-worker,” said Margaret. “He is obsessed with me and won’t leave me alone. I would date a serial killer just to get away from him!”

“Where is your husband?” Scrapper asked.

“He’s in the Marine Corps. He got captured in Afghanistan a few years ago. My daughter Megan thinks he’s still alive, so she discourages me from dating again.”

“Do you think he’s still alive?” Scrapper asked.

“I don’t know what to think,” said Margaret. “My mind tells me he’s dead, but my heart tells me I’ll see him again.”

“Why wasn’t your daughter in school this morning?” Scrapper asked.

“She’s really slick. I didn’t even know she had summer school. I don’t know why she would ditch. I’ll be sure to make sure she goes tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, back in Megan’s bedroom, Megan and Holly were interrogating Captain Vargas.

“Can you please tell me exactly what is going on?” Megan asked. “Why are criminals after you, and what is a dimensional flux pattern, and how does the shrink ray work?”

“We are from the year 3321,” said Captain Vargas.

“That’s exactly 1,313 years in the future!” Said Megan proudly. “I’m an ace in math.”

“We were hauling a miniaturization weapon prototype from a facility orbiting the Saturn moon Titan,” Captain Vargas continued. “In order to haul it through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to reach Earth, a convoy set up a decoy ship so space pirates would think something valuable was being hauled in it, so pirates would concentrate their efforts there instead of on us.”

“Tell me about the miniaturization weapon prototype,” Megan asked.

“Miniaturization weapons have been around for a long time, but quantum force fields were developed that can shield people from them. This new weapon is more advanced, and can pierce a quantum force field.”

“How do shrink rays work?” Megan asked. “How can someone weigh less as they get smaller?”

“A dimensional field surrounds the person or object being miniaturized. The gravitational signature of each quark and gluon are detected, and a singularity opens in the center of each quark and gluon particle that compose the protons and neutrons of the atoms being shrunk. Most of the matter composing the quarks and gluons are discharged into another dimension. This causes the atoms to decrease in size, weight, volume, and mass.”

“What about the electrons?” Megan asked.

“The electrons stay normal sized, but the strength of their charge is diminished to correspond with the decreased charge of the miniaturized protons.”

“So what happened when you were hauling the weapon?” Megan asked.

“A space pirate named Scrapper who was once in the military and his two brothers figured out that we were hauling the true weapon prototype. I helped get him court martialed and dishonorably discharged from space command. They attacked us, and we escaped into hypertime.”

“What is hypertime?” Holly asked.

“It is like hyperspace, but you travel rapidly through time instead of space. Because our vessel was damaged, we were caught in a dimensional flux pattern. We were switching between hypertime and hyperspace and we couldn’t return to normal space because it would've drained too much of our power supply. The only way to escape was to jettison our reactor and use the shrink ray to reduce the size of ourselves, the shrink ray weapon, and the freighter, while keeping the reactor normal sized. When we emerged into normal space, we found ourselves here, in the early 21st century at nine-sixteenths of an inch tall.”

“What do you want from me?” Megan asked.

“We need you to allow us to program the shrink ray so we can return to normal size. If Scrapper tracked us back in time, he is very dangerous. You and your mother are in danger. We also need you to keep the shrink ray out of the hands of those space pirates.”

“If I do that, what can you do for me?” Megan asked.

“Captain Vargas looked hesitantly at his crew members, then back at Megan. “What do you want?”

“I want you to use your technology after you return to normal size to find my Dad. He is a prisoner of war in Afghanistan.”

“I doubt I can do that, I would be in violation of a directive that prevents us from tampering with history. But I can make you immortal! We have amazing medical technology in the 34th century.”

“I want that too,” Megan replied. “But unless you promise to find my Dad, you’re staying at nine-sixteenths of an inch tall!”

To Be Continued!

Chapter 5: Monday afternoon, June 16th, 2008

Scrapper sat with Megan’s mother Margaret at the coffee shop. He had just finished telling her a joke, and she laughed.

“You should get a P.O. box so your daughter can’t hide your mail,” said Scrapper.

“That’s actually a good idea!” said Margaret.

“How would you like to go out on a date this Friday evening?” Scrapper asked.

“I would love to!” said Margaret. “Between my co-worker hitting on me, and my daughter holding out for her father to come back from Afghanistan, I think I could use a night out for a change!”

“We could take a taxi,” said Scrapper. “I wouldn’t want you getting arrested for drinking and driving. I’ll pay!”

Scrapper and Margaret exchanged phone numbers, then she drove him back to her house so he could take off on his motorcycle. When Scrapper was gone, Margaret confronted her daughter. who was with her friend Holly in Megan’s bedroom.

“What made you think you could get away with ditching school? Just because you get home before me doesn’t mean you can hide my mail. Scrapper gave me a good idea, I should get a P.O. box and get all of my mail delivered there, so you can’t pull something like this again. I want you to pick a consequence.”

“More chores?” Megan asked.

“You have two choices,” said Margaret, “No Internet for a week, or you can’t go anywhere for a week.”

“No Internet,” said Megan.

“Get your computer and all of your cables and bring them to my bedroom,” said Margaret. “You can have your computer back a week from today, no sooner! This includes getting on the Internet at your friend's house, too! Or at the library!”

After Megan and Holly did as Megan’s mother asked, and the two of them were alone in Megan’s bedroom, Megan said, “It’s a good thing you were here, or my punishment would’ve been more severe.”

Holly closed Megan’s bedroom door, and Megan retrieved the shrunken astronauts from the hiding place where she kept them. She had them in a spot where they could hide behind some objects on the desk if Megan’s mother came in.

“Don’t let my mother see you,” said Megan.

“We need you to use the shrink ray device on our reactor, the one I told you we jettisoned in hyperspace,” said Captain Vargas. “The current setting of the shrink ray will reduce it down to our exact scale.”

“Where is the reactor?” Megan asked.

“It’s near the crash site, where you found us,” said Captain Vargas. That’s why we got the shrink ray out, so we could reduce it down to our scale and utilize it. That’s when you found us and captured us!”

“We need to have my friend Holly’s older brother Chris drive us out there,” said Megan.

“He’s at football practice right now,” said Holly. “He should be done in about twenty minutes.”

Meanwhile, at the local high school, Chris Krieger was sitting on the bleachers along with other football players as the coach gave them advice.

“Chris, I don’t know why you’re wearing an ear ring, there are only two types of people who wear them, and there haven’t been pirates in these waters in over two hundred years!”

The other players started laughing. The coach dismissed the players, and Chris went back to his car. Just then, his cell phone rang, and Holly was on the other end.

“Holly?” Chris asked.

She asked if he could take her and Megan back to the crash site. When Chris picked them up, Megan told him the truth about the whole situation.

“So you see?” Megan asked. “We have space pirates from the 34th century after us, and one of them is dating my mom. You have to help us!”

When they got to the area of the woods where the crash site was, Chris pulled over on the side of the road.

“Can you prove it?” Chris asked.

Megan pulled out Captain Vargas from her purse. He stood on her open palm, and waved at Chris.

“How do I know he’s not a toy?” Chris asked.

“Ask him something,” said Megan.

“Who am I?” Chris asked.

“You’re Christopher Krieger, Holly’s brother.” said Captain Vargas.

“That’s amazing!” said Chris.

“We need your help to carry the shrunken space freighter and the reactor away from this area,” said Megan.

“My mom is out of town for five days, and my brother is watching me,” said Holly to Captain Vargas. “We can bring the shrunken freighter to my house.”

“That sounds like a good plan!” said Captain Vargas. “With Megan’s mom dating Scrapper, I think the shrink ray device should be left there as well.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” said Chris.

Megan, Holly, and Chris marched through the woods until they reached the crash site. The reactor was still there, as well as the shrunken space freighter. Megan did as Captain Vargas had asked, and used the shrink ray device to reduce the size of the reactor down to the same scale as the shrunken astronauts.

“Wow, you weren’t lying about that thing!” said Chris. “You really do have a shrink ray gun!”

Despite being smaller than the freighter, the miniaturized reactor was still kind of heavy. Megan carried it, while Holly carried the shrink ray and Chris carried the freighter back to his car.

“It’s a good thing you have a ’57 Chevy Nomad station wagon,” said Megan. “There’s plenty of room for this stuff.”

The trio rode back to Chris and Holly’s home, with Chris driving.

“So, what are you planning on doing with that shrink ray gun?” Chris asked.

“We want to shrink people and make toys out of them,” said Megan. “Holly wants to swallow people.”

"I do not!" said Holly. "She's lying, Chris!"

“You should only use it to shrink criminals, if you’re gonna do that,” said Chris. “You can go online on Holly’s laptop and look them up on the sheriff’s website. You could get some bad people off the streets!”

When they arrived, they unloaded the futuristic cargo and set it all in the garage, which was nearly empty, except for a weight set, a tool chest, and an old doll house.

Megan took out the shrunken astronauts and set them with the freighter.

“Do you guys have everything you need?” Megan asked.

“Affirmative!” Captain Vargas replied.

Megan and Holly went to Holly’s bedroom, while Chris went to the living room to watch a baseball game on television.

“Let’s do what Chris told us, and find some criminals to shrink!” said Megan.

"From now on, don't tell my brother that I want to swallow shrunken people!" said Holly.

"Why not?" Megan asked. "What's he going to do, tell your mom? She would never believe him!"

"There might be a way for them to find out we really have shrunken people," said Holly. "I just don't want them thinking I'm some kind of a cannibal. If you tell them about me wanting to swallow people, I'll tell your mom you're over at my house on the Internet!"

"I won't say anything, Holly!" Megan replied.

Meanwhile, Scrapper pulled up on his motorcycle at the motel where his two brothers were.

"Did you get the device?" Slackjaw asked.

"I should be able to get it this Friday," said Scrapper. "I'm going out on a date with the girl's mother, and I should be able to get access to it."

"Why didn't you just storm in and take it?" Gator asked. "Then our mission would be accomplished, and we could return to our own time."

"I don't want to create an incident that could get the government in our own time to draw attention to us and think they have to travel back here. The better we can blend in here in this primitive time, the better. If that means staying here a little longer, then so be it!"

To Be Continued!

Chapter 6: Monday evening, June 16th, 2008

"We need to get my old doll house out of our garage and bring it to my room and clean it up," said Holly. "It used to belong to my older sister, then it got passed down to me. We can keep the shrunken people inside of it."

The two teens went into the garage, ignoring the miniaturized Captain Vargas and his shrunken crew as they repaired their miniaturized space freighter. Holly and Megan carried the doll house into Holly's bedroom and set it on her dresser, which was longer horizontally than it was vertically. Holly got cleaning supplies and rags from under the sink in the kitchen so they could clean it up. Within ten minutes, it was clean, and Holly put the cleaning supplies away.

"Before we do this, do you think we should have some kind of an agent that induces vomiting?" Megan asked. "I don't know about you, but if I swallow someone, I want to be able to puke them back up."

"Why not just gag yourself?" Holly asked. "My older sister has an eating disorder, and that's what she used to do when I was younger. My mom got her into counseling."

"I think we should have both options on the table," said Megan.

"Do you have money?" Holly asked.

Megan pulled out the one-hundred dollar bill she had gotten as a birthday present.

"Okay, let me look it up on the Internet." said Holly, as she booted up her laptop. Within a couple of minutes, she had it on the screen. "It's called syrup of Ipecac! Let me call the drug store and see if they carry it. If they do, my brother can drive us over there."

Megan looked through her yearbook, and searched for a particular signature. When she found it, she showed Holly.

"Do you know this girl?" Megan asked.

"Leila Landa?" Holly asked. "Yeah, she's that Latina all the guys are crazy for. She's in the same grade we are."

"She has actually done what we're setting out to do," said Megan. "She has called sex offenders and had them come over to her house on false pretenses, and her brothers beat those guys up. Maybe she can help us!"

"That's a good idea!" said Holly. "Do you have her phone number?"

"Yeah, it's in my yearbook where she signed it. She referred to herself as the 'Peruvian Princess.' Don't make the mistake of calling her Mexican, she goes by Latina or Peruvian. She's the toughest girl in our grade, so you don't want to make her mad."

"I'll remember," said Holly. "Call her up!"

Soon, the two girls were in the car with Chris as he drove them to the drug store. Megan went in and bought two jars of Ipecac syrup, then got back in the car.

"Where else am I taking you two?" Chris asked. "I go to work in half an hour, so it has to be quick."

"You're taking us to pick up Leila," said Holly. "She's helping us capture criminals we’re gonna meet online."

"Megan, I hope you're quick with the trigger," said Chris, "some of those people are very dangerous."

"It was your idea," said Holly to Chris.

"Don't worry," Megan replied, "I'm very fast on the trigger! I'll have those predators shrunk before they get within ten feet of me."

They pulled up at Leila's house, and Leila was waiting out in the front. She was dressed in a tight short black miniskirt, black nylons, ankle high black leather boots, and a black midriff bearing tank top. If she had been five years older she could've passed for a young woman on her way to a night club. She got in the back with Megan, while Holly sat in the front with her brother.

"I know exactly how to track down criminals and invite them to come over, but what were you planning to do after they arrive?" Leila asked.

Megan pulled out her shrink ray device. "I'm going to shrink them!"

Leila had a skeptical look on her face. "Toys won't work against criminals," said Leila.

"When we get to my house, she can show you how it works," said Holly. "The shrink ray is real!"

Leila rolled her eyes. "It took three of my brothers to contain one of the guys I invited over to my house, that shrink ray better work!"

Megan took the shrunken car and pizza driver out of her backpack and showed them to Leila.

"See?" Megan asked. "I shrunk a pizza delivery driver on Saturday."

Leila took the shrunken vehicle and the shrunken pizza delivery driver into the palms of her hands. She could see that the man was moving, and not a toy.

"Wow, you weren't lying!" said Leila.

"I feel guilty about shrinking innocent people, so I want to target criminals from now on. Since you have experience in that area, I thought you might like to help us!"

"What do you want us to do with the criminals after you shrink them and we capture them?" Leila asked.

"I think we should have a swallowing contest!" said Holly.

"That's a good idea!" said Leila. "We could see who can swallow the most captives the fastest!"

"Just don't invite them over to our house when you shrink them," said Chris, "choose a neutral location."

"I can have them meet us at the railroad tracks by our house," said Holly. "Megan can shrink them there!"

Meanwhile, back at the motel, Scrapper was getting ready to exit the motel room.

"Where are you going?" Slackjaw asked, before Scrapper could reach the door.

"I have to go get some books for the class I'm teaching."

"I want to talk about something," said Slackjaw. "I think we should just go get the shrink ray from the girl and head back to our own time. This whole plan of yours is too complicated."

"We are hiding out in a pre-First Contact civilization," said Scrapper. "If we reveal too much about ourselves, space command might send a garrison back to engage us. We need to stay out of the attention of the government of this primitive time."

"We can do all that and still get the shrink ray and leave today!" said Slackjaw.

"What if space command sends people back looking for Captain Vargas and his crew?" Scrapper asked. "That miniaturization weapon will be a game changer in a war, and terrorists will pay top dollar for it. We can't afford to screw this up!"

"Scrapper is right," said Gator. "It's better to do this the right way than to have space command from our century breathing down our necks!"

"You guys can come with me to the bookstore, I need a bunch of copies of a book about Edgar Allan Poe," said Scrapper. "The teacher whose memory I suppressed had a curriculum, and I have to follow it."

The three space pirates got on their motorcycles and sped off toward the book store.

Meanwhile, after the three girls had been dropped off by Chris at Holly's house, Holly, Megan and Leila were in Holly's bedroom. Leila looked them over and said, "The two of you are dressed all wrong for this. You need to dress more slutty! Do you have any sexy clothing you could put on?"

"My older sister had some slutty clothes my mom took away from her when she was 15 or 16," said Holly. "I could check her room and see if they're still there. They should fit us."

"Will your sister get mad?" Leila asked.

"She moved away to an apartment in L.A. to attend college," Holly replied. "Her old bedroom is unlocked. She told me before she moved away that I could borrow her clothing any time."

Twenty minutes later, all three girls were dressed like they were going out to a night club. Holly was in a chatroom on her laptop in her bedroom. Megan and Leila were looking over her shoulders at the computer screen. She had found some predators on the Megan's Law website and invited three of them to a chatroom. One of them wanted proof that Holly was who she said she was, so she took a photograph of her, Megan, and Leila on her digital camera and uploaded the image to her laptop. Soon, the photo was in the chatroom.

Holly agreed to stay behind while Megan and Leila went to meet the predators at the railroad tracks. Megan and Leila didn't need to wait long for the predators. They showed up one at a time, in quick succession, and Megan zapped them before they got within ten feet of her, just as she had promised Chris earlier.

Within twenty minutes, Megan and Leila were back at Holly's with the three shrunken captives. Megan dumped them onto the first level of the doll house.

"They're all on the same scale as the others," said Megan. "Nine-sixteenths of an inch tall!"

"There are more people in the chatroom," said Holly.

"Have them meet us at the tracks!" said Megan.

Just as before, Megan and Leila went and met with the criminals. Megan shrunk them, and brought them back to Holly's.

There were now six shrunken captives, all standing around in the doll house.

"What are you going to do with us?" one of the criminals asked the towering teens.

Leila crouched and stuck her face in close, so the captives could see her. "We're going to have a swallowing contest!"

Leila turned around and the three girls stood facing each other, with their backs to the doll house.

"Should we get more?" Megan asked. "or is six captives enough for the contest?"

"I think six is enough," Leila replied. "But we're going to have to vomit them up and rinse them off. Does anyone here have a stopwatch so we can measure who swallows the six of them the fastest?"

"I've got one," said Megan, as she held the stopwatch aloft. "I got it for my birthday the other day. I also have syrup of Ipecac to help us vomit them back up."

When the girls turned around, all six captives were nowhere to be seen.

"They got away!" Holly shouted.

"They must be somewhere in this room," said Leila.

"Help me seal off the house!" said Holly. "One of you stay here, my brother is at work, and we have to seal off all the exits!"

Megan stayed in the bedroom as Holly and Leila tried to seal off the house so no tiny people could escape.

To Be Continued!

Chapter 7: The Hunt Is On!

Two of the shrunken men hid beneath Holly's bed, standing behind the leg of the bed closest to the wall, at the corner of the room. They didn't know where the others were. Bobby was one of the two shrunken predators hiding behind the leg of the bed. The two shrunken men could see the shoes and lower legs of the three girls. Three of the other captives were hiding behind the dresser. From his vantage point, Bobby could see the unobscured figures of the three gluttonous goddesses, from the top of their heads to their shoes. The sixth captive was hiding behind the door of the closet, but Leila saw him and knelt down and retrieved him.

Leila stood with her back to the door of the bedroom, while Megan and Holly faced her with their backs to the desk. The bed was on Megan's left, and the dresser was on her right.

"I've captured one of them," said Leila. "One way or another, these six captives are going to find their way into my belly!" Leila turned and looked around the room. "Do you hear that, tiny ones? You might as well surrender to us now, because we're about to have a swallowing contest!"

Megan and Holly laughed.

Leila addressed the captive in her hand. "Do you know where the other captives are?" Leila rubbed her bare stomach. "Don't you want me and my friends to have a good time? You can have the privilege of being swallowed by the Peruvian Princess! There are three cannibalistic conquerors waiting to devour all of you!"

"I think you're taking the wrong approach," Megan told Leila.

"How?" Leila asked. "If you were a shrunken man, wouldn't you want to get swallowed by a girl dressed up like me?"

"I wouldn't know, because I'm a girl," said Megan. "But we need to re-assure them that we aren't going to kill them. You probably have them thinking we're going to digest them! Telling them we're hungry hellions and other alliterative terms describing us as evil goddesses isn't going to convince them to surrender to us, it's gonna scare them!"

"Megan's right," said Holly, as she grabbed the syrup of Ipecac on the desk. "Tiny ones, your mistresses have thought of your safety. We have a vomiting agent so we can puke you back up after we swallow you!"

"Not only that," said Leila, "but we sealed off all of the exits, so there's no escape!"

"Even if you get outside this house," said Holly, "you would just get eaten by animals! At least with us, you're relatively safe."

Bobby weighed his options. He knew it might be riskier hiding from the towering teens, and if they tried to capture him, he could get squashed accidentally. He whispered to the guy hiding with him, "It might be safer to just surrender!"

Bobby came out of his hiding spot and waved his arms in the air.

"There's another one!" said Leila, the first to spot him. Leila knelt down and captured Bobby, while Holly got down on her hands and knees and searched under the bed. She spotted Bobby's partner, and grabbed him.

"That makes three!" said Holly. "Three more to go!"

Holly stood up and gave the captive she just caught to Leila. "You hold onto them while I get a jar!"

Holly raced into the kitchen and looked under the sink. She found an old Mason jar, so she plugged the drain and ran water with dish soap and cleaned the jar. When she was done, she dried it as best as she could, then returned to her bedroom.

"Put them inside this jar!" said Holly, holding the jar aloft. Leila dumped the three captives inside.

"Can't we have a swallowing contest with just three of them?" Leila asked, licking her lips.

"We need to capture the other three," said Megan. "I don't want them to escape from us. Once we have them, we can swallow them as we please!"

"Look," said Leila to the unseen remaining captives who were still at large, "we don't have time for this, I know someone with a cat, and I'll bring it over here to catch you guys if you don't surrender to my hand immediately!"

One of the remaining three captives ran out from his hiding place, and Leila caught him. "He came out from under the dresser!" Leila shouted.

Megan and Holly reached under the dresser, but the remaining two captives were still out of reach.

"I'll give you to the count of thirty to come out," said Leila. "If you don't, and we capture you, I really will digest you!"

As Leila began counting down, the remaining two captives emerged before she reached ten. Leila knelt down and captured them, then stood up and dropped them into the Mason jar with the others.

Megan took out the loaded dice from her backpack, and her stopwatch.

"I think we should toss dice to see who goes first," said Megan, as she shook the dice around in her cupped hands. "Whoever gets 7 or 11 wins!"

Megan tossed the dice, and got 11, a five and a six. Megan scooped up the dice, then did a switch, replacing the loaded dice with regular dice, and handed them to Leila. The regular dice looked just like the loaded dice.

Leila shook the dice, and said, "7 or 11?"

"Yeah," said Megan.

Leila tossed the dice, and got 7, a five and a two. "It looks like I got 7!"

"That can't be possible!" said Megan, looking at the dice. After looking them over, she saw that they were the regular dice. Leila had just gotten lucky.

"What are you so concerned about?" Leila asked. "Are you using trick dice?"

Leila checked Megan's other hand, and found the loaded dice.

"Hey!" said Leila. "You cheated, these are fake dice! That means I get to go first!"

Megan and Holly backed up from Leila.

"Hey, I'm not going to beat you up, I wouldn't pick a fight with a girl who has a shrink ray gun!"

"Just let her go first, Megan!" said Holly. "I'll time her on the stopwatch. I have a pad of paper and a pen to keep track of our scores."

Holly took the stopwatch while Megan took out a CD player. "Can I hook these up to your speakers? Megan asked.

"Sure," Holly replied.

Megan turned on the music, it was Judas Priest's Defenders of the Faith album, and the song "Eat me alive" came on.

Leila took the six captives in her hand, and told Holly to start the stopwatch. Holly pressed the button that started the stopwatch, and said, "Go!"

Leila took took two of the captives and tossed them back in her mouth. She swallowed them, then grabbed two more from the four remaining captives in her left hand, and tossed them into her mouth and swallowed. She did the same with the remaining two, and swallowed. She threw her arms up to symbolize victory, and shouted, "Time!"

Holly pressed the button that stopped the stopwatch. "Twenty-eight seconds! Megan, you can go next, I'll time you."

Megan took the syrup of Ipecac and gave it to Leila. "This will make you vomit."

"I'm not drinking that!" said Leila.

"We had an agreement," said Megan. "Each one of us swallows the captives, then pukes them up for the other girls to swallow!"

"Why can't we just get more of them?" Leila asked.

"They're immortal," said Megan. "They can't die in your stomach, they'll just swim around in there, doing who knows what!"

"Okay, you convinced me!" said Leila. "Give me that stuff!"

Leila took the syrup of Ipecac and took the cap off. She took a swig. Holly had a large plastic bowl for her to vomit into. Within a minute, Leila vomited, and all six captives fell into the bowl, along with a large quantity of vomit.

"Holly, can you go rinse them off?" Megan asked.

Holly took the bowl to the kitchen. "So what's the story with this shrink ray device of yours?" Leila asked.

"Astronauts from the year 3321 got attacked by space pirates while hauling a new miniaturization prototype through the asteroid belt," said Megan. "They got caught in a dimensional flux pattern, so they were switching back and forth between hyperspace and hypertime. They jettisoned their reactor, and used the shrink ray to shrink their space ship, themselves, and the shrink ray so their decreased mass would be small enough for the normal sized reactor to get them back to normal space. Are you with me so far?"

Leila nodded her head, indicating that she understood.

Megan continued: "They crash-landed not far from here, and I took Holly with me to go look, thinking it was a meteorite. We found the shrunken space freighter, Holly captured the shrunken astronauts, and I retrieved the shrink ray gun. The shrunken astronauts programmed the shrink ray so it will only work when it detects my unique chromosome pattern."

"What happened to the space pirates?" Leila asked.

"One of them used a mind control device on my summer school teacher, and took his place. I have to attend class tomorrow, and interact with him."

"If he's after the shrink ray, you should hide it somewhere." said Leila. "Don't take it to school with you."

Holly returned with the plastic bowl, which was now clean, and the six rinsed off captives.

"It's your turn, Megan!" said Holly, handing her the six captives.

Megan held the captives in her left hand, while Holly got ready with the stopwatch.

"Ready?" Holly asked, and after Megan nodded, Holly pressed the button and said, "Go!"

Megan tossed three captives at a time into her mouth, and swallowed them in one gulp. She tossed the other three, and swallowed them, as well. Megan raised her arms in victory, as Leila had done.

"I'm done!" Megan shouted, and Holly pressed the stop button.

"Thirteen seconds, a new record!" said Holly.

Leila handed her the syrup of Ipecac. Megan took a swallow, and a minute later puked into the large bowl. All six captives were swimming around in her vomit.

"Okay Holly," said Megan, "it's your turn!"

"Let me clean off the captives first," said Holly. Megan took the stopwatch from her.

When Holly returned with the clean bowl and captives, Megan timed her and she beat Leila's time, but lost to Megan.

"I'm the champion!" said Megan. "I have to go home soon, Leila says I should leave the shrink ray here since I will be seeing that space pirate at school tomorrow."

"Good idea," said Holly.

Meanwhile, in Holly's garage, Captain Vargas and his shrunken crew members were making progress.

"We've got the main circuits functioning," said Sergeant Diego. "Now we just need to figure out what to do from here on out."

"The way I see it," said Captain Vargas, "we can get ourselves and the shrink ray weapon back to normal size, or fix the communications system and send a hyperwave signal to the 34th century, and hope that someone comes back for us."

"We can't do both," said Sergeant Diego, "so which do you want us to concentrate on?"

Captain Vargas thought about it, then said, "It makes more sense to repair the communications system and transmit a hyperwave signal to the future. We can't let Megan or her friends know what we're up to, or they might try to stop us."

Just then, the three girls entered the garage. "How are you doing?" Megan asked.

"We got our equipment working," Captain Vargas replied. "Under normal conditions, miniaturized electrical or electronic devices don't function. The equipment we're using has been specially adapted to still function when miniaturized."

Megan turned toward Holly. "I'll leave all the captives here with you, don't swallow them!"

"See you at school tomorrow, Megan!" said Holly.

When Megan returned home, her mother had made dinner.

"I made your favorite," said Margaret, "organic mac and cheese with ground turkey and Marinara sauce."

"Mom, that's my favorite regular food. I like pizza and spaghetti the most!"

Megan ate two helpings of food, and her mother noticed.

"I've never seen you this hungry before, Megan!" said Margaret.

"This is really good!" said Megan. "I must've worked up an appetite at Holly's!"

Megan smiled, not wanting to admit that she had vomited her lunch up at Holly's house after swallowing shrunken captives.

To Be Continued!