This story would begin like so many others, with a bang and a spark and a crack! Electricity scrapes cold unfeeling steel as a figure leapt across, mere moments from being turned into nothing more than a disintegration.

"Don't let her get away!" the scientist would cackle ; he was an evil scientist. The kind you'd see in most Saturday morning cartoons but he took his hunt very seriously. After all, he was finally on the verge of catching that which eluded him to this point. And nothing eludes the gaze of the pragmatic, effervescent and slightly overdressed Dr. Maximillian E Mumford.

At this point it was only a matter of time.

Our main heroine knew she was cornered, or at least that she would be. One hallway led to another, led back to the first, led to another. Sounds of clanging doors in the distance signaled her deepest fears being confirmed. She was being contained. She still had room to run but it was at HIS allowance. He called all the shots for the time being and that would be bad enough if not for the snarling and hissing of anthromorphic metalmuck as it crawled its way towards her from all sorts of angles.

"Oh shoot, I did not wear the right shoes for this" the vagabond damsel decried, her face worn with sweat, her purple sneakers a bit scuffed. She wanted to collapse. She wanted to cry. How did she let things get to this point? She looked to the left and the right and presented to her were a pair of passageways, almost like a sick carnival game. Which way would she pick? Would it even matter?

"Left..." she mutters, barely audible and makes her way through it. Another slap, like a metal gate ... or a mouse trap.

"I'm not giving up on you, Leah..." the brunette would mutter in determination, fists bared as she began her next step but not before a slimy recoiling tendril of liquid steel restrained her right arm in place. She yanked against it hard but it recoiled with her like a stubborn rubber band, "Owwwwww!! Hey!"

"Give up now ... ShriiiiinkGirl...." the overly confident scientist would announce through a loudspeaker. "Give up now and you may at least get to see her fate!"

"Ooh you'd like that, wouldn't you, Mad Max?" the heroine quipped, quick to get up and leave nothing but a severed robot limb still clinging onto her.

I never should've let things get to this point, Lexi pondered, I should've just told her the truth sooner ... it might not have helped though ... would she even have believed me? Do I even believe this, even so much time later?

What Lexi had meant of course was the story of how this all began ... it had been about 4 months ago .... in the sleepy town of Miniborough Minnesota.

Alexis would be just waking up, right on time.

"Shoot I'm late!" she flopped out of bed, having just missed the alarm which persisted as it showed "6:35 am" on its plastic plated face. After stirring for just a moment she'd be fine, putting on her clothes, brushing her teeth and being ready for her first day of college.

"Alexis hon?" her mom asked, seemingly right on cue, "Are you ready for your first day of college?"

"Duh yeah mom...." Lexi answered, a sort of goofy smirk on her face. Sure it would be a challenge but she loved challenges and meeting new people and her cat ... Tiny. Oh shoot, where was the little ball of fluff? Moving on ...

She'd head down the stairs. Her backpack thankfully already slung around the bannister of the staircase ... wait ... where was it?

"Mom?" Lexi stuttered, "where's my backpack? I had it right here, along with all the books I'd need for ..."

Before she could finish her question she saw her dad heading out the door to work, his briefcase obscuring something else in his arm.

"Dad!" she scoffed, catching up to him in the nick of time, to see her backpack bearing the initials AEC hanging in his arm.

"Oh I'm sorry hon...." he chuckled nervously, relinquishing the errant backpack, "I've been in such a hurry ... working late hours again, y'know..."

"Yes Yes I know ...just glad you didn't water the plants with coffee again..." she sighs, much to her dad's chagrin.

"That was a one time thing and... anyway..." he sighed, looking at the clock in his car, "I'm going to be late ...are you sure you don't want a ride to campus? It's right on the way?"

"Appreciate it but no thanks...Leah's picking me up today," Lexi would reply with a smile.

"Oh right, she got that nice car for graduation ... you sure she doesn't mind giving you a ride again?" Lexi's dad would caution

"What do you mean again?" Lexi asked quizzically, "it's the first day..."

"Well yeah but ...then you had the first day of summer, first day of July ...first day of last week..."

"Okay okay, I ask for a lot of rides, I get it" Lexi huffed, seeming none too amused. So far this debacle had already consumed much of her time. In fact she could see Leah now ... or hear her anyway, commandeering her mom's old car, the hand me down 2007 Toyota Corolla as it roared up the lane. "Now go to work ... we'll talk later okay?"

"Okay okay sweetie, have a great first day" he gives her a warm smile and a kiss before driving off slow.

"Oh shoot, breakfast, I didn't even eat ..." Lexi stammers as she would dash back into the house, graceful as ever, scooting up to the table and sneaking a few sips of orange juice. "Let's see.. at Leah's current rate of driving and the speed of traffic right now, I've got about 3 minutes and 27 seconds until ..."

Before Lexi could finish her sentence however, Tiny the cat had other thoughts, coming barreling through underneath said table in a successful attempt to disable her legs for a moment sending her crashing to the floor, wearing most of the contents of the glass of orange juice. "Aw shit!" she'd exclaim.

"Alexis!" her mother would retort from nearby.

"People my age say 'shit' mom... I'm sorry" Lexi would shrug, orange juice dripping down the front of her blouse, "oh geez... just perfect..."

She'd hear the straining horn of Leah's car and get up slow, heading back towards the door.

"Aren't you going to change your shirt?" her mom would ask

"Eh, no time ... at least I'll smell citrusy fresh" Lexi sighed, heading out the door to meet her approaching friend in her car.

"Don't worry ...." Lexi would happily hum, sitting in the passenger seat of her friend's car, "...about a thing ...."

"Yes yes we know..." Leah would roll her eyes and turn the channel off, "...every little thing will be alright ..."

"Hey I was jammin' to that ..." Lexi would giggle, "yknow? Like Bob Marley? Jammin..."

"Yes yes I know..." Leah would sigh, again trying to keep her friends overactive mind at ease. Although her own attention span wasn't exactly massive. In fact, in such slow moving traffic at this time of day, she was likely to hit --

"Leah --! the curb!" Lexi would shout out again, forcing Leah again to shift into an abrupt stop and start

"Ugh.... sorry Lex...." Leah sputtered, "I know you told me to be here like 10 minutes ago ... now we're hitting all the elementary school traffic..." she sighed, watching buses methodically start and stop as they'd pick up children every few houses or so. "Seriously, why can't they just like stop at the end of the street and get them all... why do this ...?"

Lexi shakes her head and sighs, briefly reminded of her mishap with the orange juice again as she looked down, then shook her head and turned up the radio again. "Awww man, we missed the song..."

"...and that was Three Little Birds by Bob Marley! Alright college students, who's ready for the opening of Mini U's fall semester?"

"Yah!! Whoo!! We are!" Lexi exclaimed, as Leah tried to resist sputtering out her strawberry lemonade Coollata on the ride from her best friends antics.

"Seriously, why do you respond to things on the radio or TV?" Leah asks, again the aftermath of her quick laugh resulting in another moist snort.

"The real question is why don't you .... are you ready for the cheer tryouts today?" Lexi yipped, "L-E-X-I.... oh shoot ..." she whimpered

"What's wrong?"

"My pom poms...." Lexi whimpered, rifling through her bag, "I was so excited last night I didn't throw them in the bag..."

"I'm sure they'll have some you can use" Leah smirks,

"Or I could borrow yours?" Lexi gives a cute smile, before looking in the back of the car. It was a bit of a mess but she didn't see the pom poms. In fact she didn't see ... ANYTHING cheerleader related. "Wh-Where are your pom poms? The ... the cute red and white ones..."

"Yeah ... Lex...." Leah bit her lip

"Awwww no cmon!" Lexi sighed, her face contorted into an uncomfortable grimace.

"I mean it was fun ... in high school Lex..." Leah sighed, "but ... I don't know ... I may wanna try some new clubs, maybe not? But I also couldn't bring em, yknow? I'm trying to pack light..."

"Pack light?" Lexi scoffed, "you have half our senior year in here ... you got the glasses we got from Six Flags..." she sighed, tossing them aside, "you've got left over candy wrappers and ...."

She fished out some buried paper from under some gym clothes, "what in the...."

The paper had been scribbled on furiously and scribbled over again. This was quite the sketch, with many revisions being made. "You kept this??" Lexi smiled.

"Huh? Oh well of course I kept that!" Leah blushed

"It's you as a super hero!" Lexi giggled, holding up the drawing of the figure all clad in purple and gold with an SG loosely on her belt. "But why purple? You don't like purple"

"W-Well ... you do ..." Leah sighed

"Oh... oh right ... that's suppose to be me...." Lexi giggles, seeing the picture a bit differently

"Suppose to be ... that IS you, Lex, cmon... it's ... it's totally you" Leah blushed, having not been the best at drawing figures.

"Hey, if you say it's me, it's me... I kinda like it .. you made me nice and busty" she winks, hugging it to herself, "I'm keeping this"

"You can keep it, figure you had one of the dozens we both drew as kids anyways ... remember ... we wanted to be superheroes who could shrink ..." Leah nodded, having time to recall such things as the traffic would slow to a crawl.

"Right ... and what was the name?" Lexi asked

"The Shrinking Girls!" both girls would exclaim in a doofy fashion

"Holy shit we were dorks..." Lexi sighed

"What do you mean were? and does your mom know you talk like that?" Leah tsked

"Omigod you heard that?" Lexi gasps of embarrassment.

"I didn't have to, I've met your mom... hope you finished all your veggies, Lexi..."

"Shut. Up!" Lexi grunted, momentarily taking on the took of a spoiled teenager before scoffing back, "At least my dad doesn't work for Mad Max...."

"Ugh please, you promised you wouldn't call him that ... besides, some of the ... science thingies look kinda cool...." Leah defended

"The science thingies..." Lexi smirked, "is that what they're going with now?"

While Leah's father, Dave wasn't exactly too high up on the totem pole at Enormo Enterprises, the one completely legitimate and not in any way shady scientific research facility that made Miniborough a bit peculiar when compared to other small midwest towns, it was Enormo's head scientist that most people knew about, even moreso than the company's owner ... who's ... name escaped most. Edward .... something or other. He wouldn't be important. But who WOULD be ... would be Dr. Maximillian E. Mumford ... now why does that name sound familiar? Probably just a coincidence.

Anyways ... for years Enormo Enterprises had kind of just ... existed as part of Miniborough. It was a place to work, a haven for potential employment. They hired engineers, scientists, chemists and more for the better part of 2 decades. But most people didn't really know WHY. Quite honestly, a lot of the residents of the town weren't sure what Enormo did. Some would tell you they specialized in little plastic doo-dads to protect your car, others would say they worked on some kind of cheap frozen dinners while others will still assert their biggest contribution to society is those teeny tiny little things on the ends of shoelaces. Still others would continue to tout conspiracy theory, some even as high as local journalists who would claim that Enormo, in addition to polluting the environment, and honestly that part was hard to contest, was conducting unethical and crazy experiements. They were building robots, high grade weapons, nuclear bombs?? Okay, so nobody knew exactly what they did but they were in touch with the towns few colleges and learning institutes, always looking for the finest new minds to work for them and uh ... develop more ... stuff.

Why is any of this relevant? Well to Lexi and Leah it mostly isn't ... well actually it is ... it might be. Leah's father, Dave Henderson worked as an accountant there, he wasn't the top of the tops but he wasn't nobody either, he had been there about 5 years, and while it wasn't for sure what Enormo DID design, there was always something, dating back to childhood that Leah hoped they DID design.

"You realize they don't make teeny tiny robots in there" Lexi would remind her

"You don't know that! They probably make all kinds of teeny tiny stuff in there and like ... I don't know ... DO teeny tiny stuff with them!" Leah would giggle, thinking about it again in all of its absurdity.

"Well if you wanna find out so bad, why didn't you volunteer to be their spokesperson for the big .... er ... thingy they do?" Lexi shrugged, referring to one of the seemingly countless recruiting or job fair type events the company would hold. "Surely the daughter of an employee could be used for that, they'd probably even pay you ... maybe give you your own teeny tiny hair clips or something..."

"Psh pass..." Leah giggled, "thankfully I got out of that one ... my BROTHER on the other hand..." she shrugged as she continued to cruise in towards the school.

For now, that conversation would have to be put on pause, for at that very moment, another one was taking place, and it was somewhere far far up the stairs of that accursed building. Behind those doors would reside Dr. Trevor Hoffnung, Max's second in command basically, as well as a few other shareholders, including Dave Henderson and Leah's brother, Derek who had fought like hell to get out of this.

"We are very happy to have this opportunity with the upcoming fall semester and in collaboration with Mini-U to recruit our minds of the future ... just think of the engineering, scientific and ...." Trevor began, always a grandiose man in his gestures and wordplay. Unfortunately not everyone was as enthused. One such person was the 19 year old Derek.

"Pass...." Derek shrugged, rolling his eyes, prompting a quick and harsh elbow from his adjacent dad.

"Cmon, Derek ... you said you'd give this a chance in exchange for not being grounded for hitting my car with your skateboard...." Dave would retort under his breath,

"Why didn't Leah have to do any of this? She hits your car like every day .. it's just your old car...." Derek groans,

"Cmon, this will be a good opportunity for you ... besides, you said you liked our Enormites, remember??" he asked

"Yeah, when I was like 12 ..." Derek sighed

"If you're having a familial issue, Mr. Henderson..." a stern voice piped in, belonging to neither of the higher ups speaking. Instead it came from the 32" TV monitor on the wall and it belonged to a fuzzy image of the man himself, Dr. Max. "...perhaps you take it outside ... we don't need any further distractions, I'm afraid..."

"Works for me..." Derek shrugs, about to turn around and leave before being reeled in by his aggravated father.

"N-No sir ... and we do appreciate you making the time for this meeting, it's our pleasure every year ..." he'd stammer

"That's enough with the chitting chat...." the aggravated Dr. Max would interject, "There'll be time to make pleasantries later ... hopefully not ... anyway ... this year we have progressed further than ever with project Delta and in addition to the usual hullabaloo of a new hiring season, we are hoping to have these new prototypes live by early next year .... and ... again, a hand raised... okay... what is it?"

The hand raised would belong to another gentleman who appeared a bit hagrid, perhaps in his 60s at this point, "Um ... with all due respect, Mr. um... Doctor -- ... Max sir? Hadn't you mentioned we were on track for this project ... last year ... and even ... a little bit ... the year before that?"

After an awkward pause and a cough from nobody in particular followed a response from the Doctor who either needed to contemplate these words further or suffered from a laggy internet connection.

"Again! Who are you?" Maximillian asked

"Um... I'm Joseph sir ... I've been with your company since day one ..."

"Did I ASK how long you were here?" Max asked sarcastically. Joseph simply diminished in his seat. "No... I did not ask, although we're all FASCINATED to hear that you've been here for so long ... perhaps we prepare a CAKE or some kind of CELEBRATION for this grand accomplishment, would that be to your liking, Jacob?"

"Um ... Joseph ... Doctor ..."

"Oh how terribly shameful of me! Let us cancel this whole meeting over these hurt feelings!" the arrogant doctor paused. Everyone in the room grew dead silent, even Derek, although he was likely still scrolling through girls on his iPhone on OkCupid. Rather than carry on with the clearly unprofessional tirade, Joseph as it were would be removed from the seat at the smaller conference, taken away by a taller man in a black suit, the kind you may expect to see in a presidents secret service. "Any more QUESTIONS?"

After enough time had passed, Max's disgruntled image made an eye motion towards the in-person attendee and leader of the conversation Dr. Trevor Hoffnung yet again.

"And I think this is an excellent place to introduce the theme for this years campaign and project, yes it is indeed NOT the time for questions but the time for ANSWERS!" Trevor would segway into his point aggressively and confidently. To some people's surprise even the mouthy Dr. Maximillian didn't have a retort prepared to take the wind out of Trevor's proverbial sails ... yet.

"So ... the Enormite as I believe I heard someone mentioning?" Trevor would wave a friendly hand over towards Dave who would sheepishly wave as if this were part of the demonstrate, "the Enormite has been one of our most well known object for a number of years now... capable of over a dozen everyday office tasks..."

"It's just a binder clip..." Derek would mutter and chuckle to himself. Trevor would opt to ignore the small outburst, Max seemed a bit more upset.

"I'm sorry, what is this? What is this he says? Just a ... just a BINDER CLIP?!" Maximillian would retort

"Um.... all due respect Dr. Max, we've ... we've ALREADY gotten off on quite a tangent..." Trevor would attempt with all of his might to steer the conversation back, "and surely ... surely EVERYONE on the board would agree that the Enormite is much more than a mere BINDER CLIP!" Trevor would nod, trying to channel some positive energy into the room. Despite Max's best efforts, it seemed to be working as even the more stone faced members of the board would nod, each one of them having a decently sized "Enormite" at their desk.

What was an Enormite? One might ask? One of the few things Enormo made that people actually HEARD of. Taking on the appearance of a paper clip that had been half bent of shape, the enormite was fairly handy at taking on other shapes, growing a bit longer than it's appearance would suggest and even shrinking a bit smaller to fit as a small "paper hole" if needed. It was fairly basic but made of an advanced liquid metal that made it very useful for everything from ... yes binder clips to stapling, paper clips, or even just a fidget toy to hold onto if your hands needed to be occupied. It wasn't going to revolutionize anything but it was perhaps the ONE thing that Enormo got right and was in almost everybody's homes in the small town.

"When our great ... genius even!" Trevor would glow, to further appease his maniacal boss, "when our great genius boss Dr. Maximillian references Project Delta, he is speaking of things that will expand even this to great new heights, even literally ... now if you'll turn to page 37 in the packets we've handed out, you'll see great success from our last testing groups conducted over the summer...."

As pages were busy shuffling, including that of Dave Henderson, his teenage son would just shrug and mutter, "...it's still just a binder clip"

"Just so you know ..." Leah warned her friend as they both took a leisurely stroll towards the campus' massive atria to see what activities were underway, "I can't keep giving you rides to school ... I'm already all moved in and even though it's not a super long drive, I just ..."

"I know I know ..." Lexi would scoff, peering around at all the various booths around promoting some of the clubs on campus, "...I'm gonna get a car, I can feel it"

"Getting a job would help" Leah would tease

"I'm sorry we don't get all get our dad's hand me downs ..." Lexi rolls her eyes, "we don't all have that ENORMO money"

"Ugh, just let that go ... a job's a job" Leah replies

"But don't you ever wonder like ... what their deal is? They must make more than glorified paper clips and household cleaner..." Lexi would postulate as the duo checked out some of the clubs, ranging from drama, music, sports and ... well ... the aforementioned science club with a sponsorship from none other than Enormo Enterprises. "Speaking of which, how's it hangin' Derek?"

"I don't wanna talk about it..." Leah's disgruntled brother would sigh as he was the lone participant at a booth geared to sign up students for the science club. The sign up advertised an early field trip, a tour of the Enormo Enterprises facility.

"Heh how long dad got you working here today?" Leah asked

"Uh... what time is it now?" Derek asked

"8:17 am..."

"Oh lord..." Derek would groan, burying his head in his hands

"Awwww there there, lil bro" Leah would tease, patting his shoulder, "looks like you got ... a few people to sign up? Wait ... are some of those fakes names?"

"Iwana Fuck.... you tell me" Lexi rolls her eyes, looking at the page, "I'm gonna go look over at cheer club, be right back!"

As Lexi ran off, Leah and Derek exchanged glances.

"Guess next time you'll think twice about skating near dad's car" Leah giggled

"Yeah yeah yeah ... all I know is I need at least 12 signups today or I don't get paid ... not that its much but I should at least get SOMETHING for this..." Derek explained.

"Well how many names do you have?" Leah asked

"Counting 'Iwana Fuck'? .... 3...." Derek rolled his eyes, "even people who are really into science don't take this seriously, it's just a way for the Big E to get their hands on things..."

"The Big E...?" Leah asked skeptically,

"I don't know, they said it sounded trendy in the marketing meetings..." Derek shrugged

"Awwww, you DO care" Leah teased

At that moment, the siblings would glance over and see Lexi laughing with a small group of girls as she was talking about the cheer tryouts, even performing a couple quick moves, eliciting some oohs and ahhs from some passers by, as well as a wolf whistle from a guy in a red sweatshirt which would trigger a similar reaction in Lexi herself, her face going from pale to red.

"So, not doing the cheer thing this year??" Derek asked

"Nah, I just think it's time to try something new" Leah nodded

"Hey didn't you wanna try like ... roller derby when you were in grade school?"

"Psh yeah... that was a long time ago ... and I could never get Lex to try it with me" Leah scoffed

"You know, you CAN do stuff without her ... you two have always been inseperable, ever since I could remember..." Derek recalled

"Well ... she's my bestie..." Leah looked over, giving her friend a smile before wincing watching her trip and fall after getting a bit overzealous on the cheer front. She brushed herself off and still maintained a smile because ... of course she did. Lexi always seemed to have some kind of smile, no matter what the circumstance.
"...I suppose you're right though ... that's why I'm going to check all these different things out and ... what??"

Derek simply motioned with his eyes towards the signup sheet for science club, giving his sister a puppy dog look

"No..." Leah said sternly, "No no no no no..."

"Cmon, it could be fun..." Derek shrugged

"You just want the money..." Leah rolled her eyes

"Actually ... it's a $50 gift card to Outback..." Derek confessed, "but you do get a free set of those enormite things"

"I KNEW you liked those! I remember when we were kids I was always stepping on em cuz you'd leave them in my room" Leah nodded

"Look, if you sign up, all you have to do is attend the tour ... then you just ... 'forget' to show up to the first club meeting next week and it still counts as a signup for me ..." Derek nods

"Quite the sales pitch ..." Leah rolled her eyes

"Oh man! Enormo enterprises!" a voice suddenly chimed in. The voice belonged to a skinny guy aged about 21 with short black hair and a big goofy grin. He was wearing a black and red shirt with stylized artwork on it, a clear comic book fan, "Did you know they use hyper-sensitive magnets to try to manipulate matter and create new forms of ..."

Derek, while the interest drained from his body was basically just motioning towards the sheet, knowing this sucker ... er ... fine upstanding citizen was just perfect for the sign up.

"Oh heck yeah, I'll sign up!" the young man would state, signing his name as "Josh James" "When's the tour? and are cameras allowed? I wanna get pictures of what they keep in the basement"

"What ... do they keep in the basement?" Leah asked, regretting the question as soon as she asked it

"You don't know?" Josh would explain, "Failed experiments, robotic machinery ... strange goo!!"

"Strange goo?" the suddenly grossed out Leah would ask

"Ha.... okay uh ... Josh, we'll see you later today..." Derek nodded, giving him his materials and credentials for the guided tour

"The tour is today?" Leah asked, "well I suppose I don't have much else to do ..."

Reluctantly, the brunette would stump down and sign off on the sign up sheet, bringing the grand total of names to 5.

"Well ... since you're going ... and you can't do anything without her anyway..." Derek suggested, "maybe Lexi would wanna go"

"Psh oh hell no, she hates that place" Leah scoffed, not even able to see her best friend at the moment. She had perhaps drifted into the school bookstore or something. Or simply gotten lost. She ... did that a lot.

"C'mon ... just sign her up" Derek shrugged, "what's the worst that could happen? Besides, if I get enough names on here, I'll just erase her off..."

"Uggh fine..." Leah sighed, scribbling Lexi's name on another line. "Do you even LIKE Outback?"

To this, Derek would shrug.

Leah rolled her eyes as she left the science club booth, "It's a good thing Lexi's super positive..." she thought to herself. "Even though she won't be THRILLED about this, I know she'll at least approach it with the right attitude... it's just a short tour anyway ... how bad could it be?"

At that moment, Lexi would return, holding a pair of purple and white pom poms that she would vigorously shake, "Look what I got at the school store....!!" Lexi would giggle, "perfect for the cheer tryouts tonight! Whoo!! Go Miniborough!!" Lexi would chuckle, before noticing the awkward look on her best friends face. "What? .... What?"

"I can't believe you roped me into this ..." the suddenly maligned Lexi would mumble, head down as she paced the copper coated tiled floors of the Enormo Enterprises headquarters. "...this is going to be so stupid, Leah ... I mean cmon ..."

"So much for positivity..." Leah muttered under her breath, although she too wasn't exactly thrilled for the impending tour. As the duo walked towards the site of the tour, Leah tried to lighten the mood by pointing out a lifesize sculpture of an Enormite, and it was one with many edges and bevels, along with crazy twists. In fact, it seemed more advanced than anything the company had actually put out. "Hey, let's get a picture with the Enormite display!"

"Pass" Lexi smirked, shaking her head as she hoisted her loaded backpack up yet again, feeling the weight of the things inside. "I'm gonna end up cutting out of here early anyway..."

"Oh right, when do the cheer tryouts start?" Leah asked

"About 5 o clock ..." Lexi nodded, "I've packed everything in here so I can hopefully just sneak off and change before heading down ... lucky me that this place is within walking distance of campus..."

"Hello there ladies" a strangely confident, if not overly excited voice would state, belonging none other than to Josh who walked up between them, putting his arm around both as if he knew them. Upon getting a bit of an uncomfortable look from Leah, he stopped. "S-Sorry ... well hey, isn't this neat?" He looked over towards Leah with a goofy grin, "I remember you from the club signups but who's your friend?"

"You could just ask me" Lexi chuckled, "I'm Lexi, nice to meet you"

"Josh" he'd answer, shaking her hand rather vigorously. The young man certainly had enthusiasm. "You both here to see what really goes on here?"

"What ... really goes on?" Lexi asked, with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh please don't get him started with the goo ..." Leah rolls her eyes as the group would further advance down the hallway, following signs for the guided tour as more college students slowly gathered around them.

"Ah welcome prospective scientists of the future" the confident booming voice of Dr. Hoffnung would ring out. The man stood at about 6 feet tall with a finely buttoned up white lab coat, underneath which he had on a black button up shirt and an Enormo Sr. Scientist badge clipped to this right breast pocket, "My name is Dr. Trevor Hoffnung and I will be your guide on this fascinated journey through Enormo's fine history ... Enormo Enterprises was founded in 1992 by our CEO Edward Enormiaggio"

"So THAT was the guy's name!" Lexi would exclaim in a hushed whisper

"Throughout our run here ..." Dr. Hoffnung would continue, "Enormo Enterprises has made great strides in everything from ballistics to food supply shortages to robotics and much much more, in fact we are on the verge of some very exciting ... yes, young lady in the back?" Trevor would pause, addressing a wayward hand that went up, belonging to none other than Alexis Cole.

"What exactly does your company do?" she'd ask, half joking but also somewhat serious. Some of the tour takers would chuckle a bit at the straightforward nature of the question.

"No no... that is a perfectly valid question" Trevor nodded, attempting to dissuade any of the skepticism from the other tourists. "Enormo has been working for decades on perfecting nano technology ... including metals that can actually grow and shrink to fit users needs and other technological advancements that can ..." the suddenly exasperated scientist would pause upon seeing Lexi's hand raise again, "....yes, young lady?"

"I was told we'd all get free samples of Enormites? Is that true?" Lexi would ask with a bit of a snort in her voice, causing a larger group to burst into silent laughter. This time the Doctor was less so amused.

"MOVING ON ..." he would say in a stern voice, leading the group towards their first destination. Josh would give her a sheepish shrug as he passed by but Leah seemed less entertained.

"C'mon Lexi, you said you'd give this a chance..." Leah sighed, with a bit of disdain in her voice

"Okay first ... never said I would ... second? This is stupid! Look, I doubt there's any killer robots or ... goo ... in this place but there IS something about this place I've never trusted or liked ... and you know I'm right" Lexi shakes her head

"I ... I don't know ... but ... sometimes I'd just like to form my own opinions on things" Leah sighed, drawing a bit of a confused reaction from her best friend.

"Huh? Leah, no ... I didn't mean that ..." Lexi stammered

She'd follow along with the tour, unable to help feeling a little guilty if she had somehow hurt Leah's feelings.

As the group were led from the larger hallway into a more contained facility, Josh couldn't help but take out his camera phone and snap a couple pictures of some of the lab equipment, raising suspicion from security who would end up taking the camera phone altogether.

"Hey, what are you doing?" a suddenly defiant Josh would ask.

"No photography I'm afraid..." Dr. Hoffnung would explain, "you'll get it back at the end of the tour..."

"Oh yeah, there's nothing shady about that ..." Lexi would mutter under her breath, drawing another set of rolled eyes from Leah.

"First, let me tell you what a pleasure it is today to introduce you to our lead scientist and someone we have to thank for many of the wonderful advancements our company has made over the years ... ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, please welcome our head of science ... Dr. Maximillian Mumford" Trevor would nod, almost showing deference as the shorter but distinguished man made his way to the forefront.

Dr. Max stood at about 5'8, wearing a much thicker lab coat and what appeared to be a very scratchy dark green dress shirt underneath. If one didn't know any better you'd think the Doctor of Science was preparing for another ice age. In addition to this, a set of goggles lay atop his grizzly face, his eyes appearing drawn and tired even as he carried a certain air of confidence, bordering past arrogance.

"Ah, look at all the young scientists..." Dr. Max would announce, his voice slow and robotic as if he had thoroughly rehearsed this speech. The meandering man would pace around a bit, first looking at the tour group before going over to a table with some tools on it, "You're all familiar with this, right? Enormite? Well what if I were to tell you, it's not just the name of the product but also the element that comprises it...?"

The entire group stayed fairly silence, with the exception of Josh who appeared to lean in with some interest.

"Okay then ... clearly you are all stunned by what you are seeing" Max nodded, a certain pride gleaming in his eye.

"Yeah that must be it ..." Lexi would scoff to herself

"Now behold how the magic is happening" Maximillian would again boast, using a small syringe to collect some of what appeared to be a milky viscous liquid, teeming with life. "Enormite is the life blood of so many of our machines here"

"I thought machines didn't have blood" Lexi would whisper, eliciting a rude shush from a cohort to her right. "Psh, tough crowd, tough crowd"

"Just imagine, this is used as both a fuel source and a creation all its own" the eccentric doctor would explain as he used the syringe to inject the metal into another sample, a sort of dormant little metal cube. The cube would begin to move just a bit, emitting a few sparks, akin to static electricity. "You all may want to back away for this one" The Doctor would joke.

"I'll take my chances..." Lexi whispered

"Now watch as we enhance the Enormite with some radiation... perfectly safe I assure you" Dr. Max would add, exposing the cube to some kind of warbling light from a sterile white plastic syphoning gun. After a few moments, the cube would twitch and shake a bit, but not much else what happen. The Doctor would let out a bit of a frustrated "ahem" but then try to recover "Well then ..."

"Ummm question..." Lexi piped in. Trevor looked a bit worried about this, "Was that uh ... suppose to happen?"

The crowd fell silent and the disgruntled elder scientist looked into the crowd, "Who ... who is saying this?"

"Um...." Trevor would stammer, not really sure where to go from here. He was so use to having to defuse Max's short temper but in this case, it would seem things may have gotten too out of hand. Nobody talked back to Maximillian E Mumford after all.

"You! In the back! The ... the girl!" Max would shout out, exposing Lexi front and center as many worried colleagues departed her side.

"Oh uh ... me" Lexi would nod, "Um... y-you shouldn't have ... I mean, I'm not the only girl here but ..."

"Do you always do so much talking?" Dr. Max would retort, "maybe if you spend some time LISTENING ... you may LEARN something ... regardless, you are dismissed..."

"Huh?"

"DISMISSED!! GO!! JETZT!" Dr. Max would exclaim

"Wait, what, you want me to take a jet? What the ..." Lexi would ask

"Get out of my lab! You are off the tour!" Maximillian would shake his head, muttering something as he walked away, "I cannot educate the youth of today if they are so petulant ... she is not here to learn, she is here to joke..."

"Maybe I want to learn what ACTUALLY goes on here ..." Lexi muttered under her breath. Leah gave Lexi a really disappointed stare and just mouthed the word "go". Lexi's expression would droop and she'd just walk away, going back out through the automatic door that she came through. As the rest of the group would slowly resume the tour, Josh would stay behind to try to find the disgruntled Lexi who was slow to make her way out.

"H-Hey ... just so you know ..." Josh would say, "I think that guy was really harsh on you ... I mean I thought some of the stuff you said was funny and his experiment definitely didn't go to plan"

Lexi looked a bit more upset though. Not that she had upset the crazy scientist guy, but that her friend Leah seemed deeply upset with her. She hadn't meant to cause so much trouble, but she did appreciate this new guy at least trying to comfort her.

"Th-Thanks ... Josh, was it?" Lexi would give him a forced smile, to which he would nod. "Wh-Why don't you go back on the tour? I know you were looking forward to it ... maybe you'll uh ... find that strange goo you were looking for or whatever"

"No doubt, and hey ... hope to see you around campus, you seem pretty cool" Josh would nod, heading back towards the group. Lexi would again give him a smile, although as soon as he was out of view, she was sure to start booking it.

She then stopped though. Something was telling her that something was off about all of this. While the tour group had continued down one hallway, it seemed they were only really being shown a few different rooms in the facility. Since the area was now vacated, Lexi decided, against her better judgement to maybe see where some of the other doors went.

Upon re-entering the lab she had just been dismissed from, she decided to take a closer look at Max's cubic sample from before. To her surprise, even though it still wasn't doing much, the piece of metal was showing some signs of shrinking and growing. She'd raise an eyebrow to this before noticing one of those bulky "secret service" types walking off again in another direction.

"No way that dude works here..." Lexi would think to herself, slipping through another automatic door that led to a long hallway. The gentleman she had been tailing was now gone and there was no clear direction on where to go, just several doors belonging to employees as offices or a few research labs with locked doors.

After taking a long trek down a few more corridors she'd sigh.

"Lex, what are you doing?" she'd ask herself, "this place is shady ... we all know it is but there's only so much difference I can make about it ... plus I should probably get ready for the cheer tryouts ... there's gotta be a bathroom in this place. Upon turning back to find one, she'd hear some loud walking heading in her direction, the faint but growing echo of a man's studded boots hitting the floor. It was that thug again ... I mean, the secret service guy!

"Oh great ..." Lexi would whisper to herself, not wanting to be seen by him, she ducked down a stairwell and went down a floor, but still heard walking coming from both the level above and the door to the 2nd floor. Heart now racing she'd go down another level still, this time the door a bit harder to open but she pulled on it hard enough to come out to ... another hallway of generic doors.

"Would it kill them to put a map in here?" she'd ask herself, shaking her head as she made her way down this hallway. It seemed much much quieter in this area, with a lot of the offices having dimmed lights and nobody inside. She could hear some buzzing sounds from inside some of the locked lab doors, as if experiments were going on.

"Ugh ... this is giving me the creeps..." Lexi would sigh, holding her backpack close and even going for her cell phone to maybe get in touch with Leah. "No signal ... great"

From further down the hallway she could see a flickering light as well as a sign that denoted a restroom. "Ugh finally, I can at leats change into my cheer stuff and get out of here ... maybe there's a backdoor"

She'd hurriedly make her way towards the restroom only to see upon closer inspection it was barricaded off. "DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE" a hand typed sign in red would say, plastered across the plastic barrier.

"Figures..." she sighed, "multi million dollar engineering company and they can't even maintain a bathroom"

With that she'd try just a few more doors, all of them locked, before she'd come to one in particular, which almost looked like a closet.

"...am I really going to get changed in a closet?" she sighed, before hearing the thumping footsteps of a few people as they made their way down the steel stairs towards Lexi's location. Knowing she might not have much choice, she anxiously pulled on the door and to her surprise it opened. Before she could realize that where she was was in fact NOT a closet, the door had slammed shut with a bit of an unforgiving clang.

"What was that?" one of the men would ask, upon entering the hallway and hearing the clang

"It's probably just the machine settling, no big deal..."

"That thing gives me the creeps ..." the first man would continue, trembling a bit as they both walked the halls.

"This place gives me the creeps" a shocked Lexi would gulp as she found herself in the now locked room, lit only by an ominous silvery glow as limited light bounced its way off the shiny metal surroundings. She reluctantly set her backback down on the ground, rifling through it and seeing her change of clothes and the purple and white pom poms before shaking her head. "No way I'm getting changed in here ... there's probably cameras everywhere ... not to mention I'm freakin stuck ..."

She'd sigh as she looked around, a few buttons would appear on a console in front of her, one blinking red, another green. There was a key in the console, a massive oversight if that key somehow started whatever machine she was entangled with. She'd stand up and look around, pulling out her cell phone. Still no signal, but at least she could employ the flashlight to get a better look at what was going on.

She studied her surroundings in great detail to find many singular plastic containers all in a massive wall, like some kind of library. Inside each plastic housing was a similar type of cube or geometric metal shape that would twitch and spark, even changing shape and size a bit.

"I've ... gotta get out of here..." Lexi sighed, looking over head to see some kind of massive fan blade looking thing. "The world is that ...?"

Lexi would sigh, not noticing she was standing on a large circular part of the ground that was marked off for whatever reason. It was really the only part of this strange room that had space to move, with everything else feeling claustrophobic and cramped. Many of the plastic housings would have numbers or labels on them, although some were scratched off. They'd read "DELTA EXP. 101 ..." and so on.

Lexi would look around, realizing her only way out was that door but the door was sealed shut now. She did see something though, after leaning in and examining closer, the door handle had but a lone key hole underneath. Her gaze went back to the console, the only key in the entire room at this point residing in that ignition.

Meanwhile, the 3 security men finished their patrol of the hallway, even testing the door Lexi was in to make sure it was locked. After doing so they doubled back.

"Hey, I gotta take a leak..." one of them said

"Forget it, bathroom's been down for weeks down here" another one said, "let's try upstairs"

With that the 3 men faded back up the stairwell.

Lexi, overrun with thoughts of anxiety was running out of options.

"Okay ... door ... key ..." she repeated in her head, "this could be simple, right? Can't it just be simple?"

She'd reach for the key cautiously and try to pull it out but it was stuck in there. She sighed "Never simple..."

She'd take a deep breath and try again, putting a bit more strength into her attempt. She'd carefully push on the key and notice it started to move. "Yes!" she'd think to herself, before yanking on it again. Nothing. "Shit"

What she didn't notice is that the red light that had been blinking before had now turned a solid blue. She'd try the key again and try to pull on it. She could push it down a bit but it still wouldn't come out of the console's vice grip. Perhaps in a moment of panic or just a logical guess, she decided to wriggle the key instead. Turning it to the left did nothing as it seemed to be locked in tighter than ever. She decided to crank the key to the right. Bad idea.

"DELTA TEST 287 UNDERWAY...." a pronounced computer voice would state.

"Delta who what? Delta test what?! Delta what?!" Lexi exclaimed, her own voice drowned out by a sudden gust of wind as the fan blade above seemed to be whirring to life, blowing her hair straight down as well as hindering her ability to look straight up without getting a face full of gale force winds. "Wait no, abort! Abort!" she'd scream, but it was too late.

By now the key was locked in the engage position. She tried to turn it back but it was stuck again and didn't seem to be going anywhere.

"Oh cmon!" she whines, "who has a machine that starts with a key and doesn't have some kind of cancel button!" she'd exclaim, going for any button on the panel. "Oh right... these numb nuts, that's who!" she'd whine, quickly trying to get back to the door but unfortunately she made another wrong step. On her way back, she'd step on the circular area of the floor which now turned red upon her doing so.

"WARNING..." the machine would say "MAXIMUM WEIGHT LIMIT EXCEEDED"

"Um... excuse me?" the offended Lexi would retort but before she could go much further she felt a painful electrical shock

"OWWWWWWW!!" she'd whimper, falling ot the ground on her side, only able to make out the door but it may as well have been a mile away by now. She tried to crawl out of the pulsating red circle as it seemed the longer she stayed there, the more discomfort she'd feel. Soon the pain subsided but her skin felt like rubber, a constant pulsation rocking through her arms and legs, goosebumps forming on her flesh as she futilely made any effort to get to the door.

"I can't ... feel ... my ... legs ..." the distraught Lexi would cry out, "PLEASE!! ANYBODY! HELP ME!" she'd cry out but the machine sounds were deafening at this point. It was almost as if she were thrown in a washing machine as the gusts of wind overpowered her and the static shock would lead her to feeling a painful tingle if she so much as moved

"Please... I don't want to die ..." she'd whimper, a single tear falling from her eye as she felt weaker and weaker. She'd reach for one of the plastic containers to try to steady herself but it seemed like her hand could just never quite make it there.

"Pleeeeeeeease!!" she'd cry out one last time but this time something was different. It was as if the entirety of the world was sucking itself around her in an infinite vortex. Her one single word seemed to resonate through her and around her, but it also got softer and softer the longer that it carried on. And then things got weirder.

The horrified brunette known as Alexis Cole, who was previously 5'4 tall found herself surrounded by nothing more than dark colors, her body suddenly shivering, her short hair now short circuiting as it sparked and crackled with the rest of her.

"Please ..." she'd sigh, "l-let me out ... I promise ... I'll pay whatever penalty.... just let me out ..." the stunned Alexis would utter. But there were so many things wrong with this scenario. For one thing, where were the machines? She seemed to be in a different place entirely.

"Did I get teleported? Did I die?" the anxious Lexi would go over the possibilities in her mind, still missing one that eluded her the most. A quick glance down would at least start to put things together as she walked into a soft but massive satellite dish shaped object. She'd back away, her body still tingling at almost any little twitch or movement. She looked down and turned bright red.

"My clothes?!?" she'd shriek in her terrified mind, "what happened to my clothes?"

Lexi was more scared than she'd ever been in her life, standing there in a strange surrounding, completely naked, shivering and sobbing. This couldn't be real. It had to be a nightmare. Some kind of payback for upsetting Leah or pissing off the stupid scientist guy.

"I'm not a bad person ..." the hopelessly afraid Lexi would mutter, "I'm not ... I'm so sorry ... just ... please ... if anyone can hear me... if anyone can ... h-help me ... please ..."

From afar, nothing remained of the formerly 5'4 tall girl Alexis Cole, save for a backpack with the iconic initials and a pile of clothes that lay where she had just stood. Or at least, that's what it would appear to most human eyes.

One voice filled the void though and it was the same computer voice that had come on before.

"DELTA EXPERIMENT 287 COMPLETE ... SUBJECT : ALIVE RESULT : SUCCESS"

There would be what would sound like, to most, a fairly loud crashing noise from the lower levels of the building as the college aged students toured the 6th floors at the pristine, crisp, white metallic laboratories that made up Enormo Enterprises. The usually detail oriented Maximillian E Mumford would shrug this off though, used to hearing mechanations at all hours of the night, be they in reality or in his own head.

Dr. Hoffnung on the other hand had a temporary look of grave concern. If what he had heard is what he THOUGHT he heard, somebody could be in big trouble.

"I'm in big trouble, I'm in big trouble, I'm in big trouble..." the wayward Lexi would tell herself, feeling as lost as could be within the cloth of her fallen blouse. "Wh-What is even happening right now?" she'd cry out, noticing little sparks emitting from her bare arms again. "W-Wait, wait what is this??" she'd mutter, falling on her back and suddenly hearing a slight rip. "What in the?"

Lexi would struggle, trying to fight out of her suddenly disheveled blouse as one arm would slip through a hole in it but the other would get caught in her bra and just the fact that she was still on her side. By the time she rotated to stand upright she suddenly felt another sudden shock, this one a bit less powerful but it seemed to make her .. grow? She'd look around to see the same machinery as before. Plastic containers lining the walls and the same key-powered machine from earlier, except now the red metal plate she had stood on was no longer red but green.

"H-How am I back here? Or did I never ... leave?" she gasped, holding her hand out to look at and realizing her size relative to the room was still off. Even as she stood up, she wasn't able to see past the third or fourth row of containers on the wall whereas before her head was above the 6th or 7th. She had the height of a little kid now which would explain why her blouse no longer fit right and she had walked clean out of her jeans.

"Wh-What in the world...??" Lexi would groan, falling onto her backpack and clutching it tight as another wave of tingles swept over her. She'd look up and see nothing but the dim blue and grey, pulsating lights as suddenly the sombering chill of the computers voice rang out again "TEST SUBJECT 287, PREPARING FOR DOCKING"

The terrified Lexi would look up as she once again began to shrink, this back to her former size, looking over at her mountainous backpack as her formerly oversized blouse became more of a circus tent and the helpless woman found herself under her capsized bra cup. "Docking?" she'd ask herself, hearing what sounded like small helicopter blades approach.

Upon crawling towards any source of light she could find, she would see what appeared to be just that, a swarm of white toy helicopters triangulating on her location, small metal claws protruding out. She shielded her eyes from the piercing light thaqt emitted from their cockpits, although one thing was clear, they were after her. As she started to run, having to dash under the threshold of her blouse again, she'd look up to see a plastic container sliding out of its place in the wall. The container was labeled EXP. 287.

"I ain't going in there" the defiant Lexi thought, running along the cold tiled floor, now completely naked and in pursuit by the drones.

"Th-This... this isn't going to happen ..." she'd chirp out, but any authority her voice might've once had was now greatly diminished by its apparent squeakiness. "You are going to stand back!"

The drones were not only ignoring her but they were plunging down on her location, ready to seize her up.

"You hear me?!" she shrieked, her mousy voice still a bit faint compared to the sounds of the robotic creations descending on her but she'd bear her fists and grit her teeth a bit as she stood her ground, as limited as it may have been. "You are NOT going to take me ... stay away!!"

With that passionate shout of emotion, the formerly tiny Lexi would grow in size, finally reaching something of her former height. She might not have been exactly 5'4 but she was definitely big enough to deal with this threat of plastic and metal as it still tried to claw at her. She'd lash out with a fierce swipe of her hands, crying out in pain as the thrashing motion would lascerate some of the skin on her striking arm.

She'd then look up briefly at a single flashing light in the corner. A video camera.

"Ugh I knew they'd have cameras in here..." she muttered, "Well you ain't getting to see this, ya pervs!"

With that she'd strike the camera as well, a bit of a simpler task as she'd take it out with a quick punch of her hand, sending more smoke into the room.

"There's gotta be a way out of here..." Lexi would sigh, slipping her sneaker on and hastily stomping on another one of the attack chopper drones, sending several splintered white plastic pieces onto the debris laden ground. The last of the drones would try to go for her face but she'd duck down quickly, also trying to salvage her clothes in case she DID get out of here.

The drone's trajectory would take it instead into the panel with the key in it, striking it and causing some sparks to come out. Lexi would help as her backpack caught fire but she would clutch at the clothes that had mostly survived, save for a tear in her blouse. She'd fight to put it back on and go for the jeans next as the room continued to emit smoke and small flames swelled on the floor.

Finally, the computer voice delivered some ... good news ... given the circumstances.

"INITIATING EMERGENCY FIRE PROTOCOLS...."

With that, to Lexi's lone relief, she'd hear a lock unlatching. It had to belong to the single way out and so she'd throw herself into it, appearing beaten and bruised, her arm still dripping some blood although a bit better as she clutched it in pain, biting her lip and grimacing, having just made it out. By now the antics had definitely drawn some security detail though.

Rather than going back up the way she came, the stunned and still very much lost Lexi would dart down the hallway, wearing tattered clothes as she tried to find another way out. She'd notice this hallway took a curved approach towards what appeared to be an exit. But she also heard people's footsteps from the other way. She was moments away from maybe seeing the light when she saw the man ... not Max, but the other doctor, the actually decent one. He was feverishly running towards the room she had just been in... a room that was bursting with flames.

"Password H-O-F-F...." Trevor would begin but it was to no avail, the keypad on the door was fried. Still he kept trying to maybe pry the door open and see what could be salvaged. He suddenly heard the cry of a young woman.

"Are you crazy, sir? You're going to get killed!" Lexi would shout out, unable to help herself trying to save the poor guy. He'd look over in surprise and step back as the room did in fact emit a sizable spark. He'd stand to the side and back away as she advised, but when he looked again, Lexi would be gone, having run out into the empty field behind Enormo. He looked positively stunned himself. 'Why would she warn me...?' he thought

Meanwhile, Lexi was running on pure adrenaline at this point, unsure how she was even able to move after all she had endured. She rubbed her head as she came out into a grassy clearing. This was clearly not the intended exit point however as a chain link fence surrounded her. The only recourse was to go back into the building but she'd rather take her chances with climbing the fence at this point despite her hobbled state.

As the young lady walked, her feet were kicking off sparks, as if walking on a thick pile carpet and accumulating static cling. She'd feel painful little shocks, as if electrical mosquitos were nipping at her heels. Her breathing sped up, then slowed down as she began to process what had happened. Somehow, this mental break was also effecting her electrical field as the sparks would subside the longer she stood in pensive thought.

Lexi wasn't sure what made her do this but she put her arms out to the wind, standing as calm as could be. She folded her arms across herself as if meditating and looked up briefly. She exhaled, her eyes fluttering open and closed. "Am I really going to try this?" she thought to herself.

She took a few more paced breaths to calm herself and muttered the word "....shrink"

She exhaled again and stopped thinking altogether for a moment.

"I knew that wasn't going to ..." she'd start, before the electrical whirlwind started again, taking her down into the grass, each blade now as tall as a redwood. She'd look around and to her surprise she was still clothed, her clothes also snapping with the same electrical energy, or perhaps it was emanating from her flesh underneath. Her breathing and heartrate began to speed up again. She was tiny ... tiny enough to not be spotted amidst the field of green.

"Okay ... so this is a thing..." she thought to herself, reaching for a blade of grass and watching as it wafted in the breeze against her touch. "So how do I ..."

She'd yelp as she regained her size in one fell swoop, her clothes nearly tearing under the pressure, except they too, rebounded like a stretched rubber band. "...use it?!"

Lexi's eyes would dart every which way, including into the windowed building of Enormo as it loomed in the foreground, making sure nobody had seen her little magic trick. She walked pensively towards the chain link fence.

"This is impossible..." Lexi would mutter, as she got closer and closer to the fence. "I can't ... I must be delirious ... maybe I did die in the lab ... I ... I don't even know how..."

Lexi's emotions began to take her on another rollercoaster and unfortunately that rollercoaster would also steal her size, taking her back down to her miniscule size but this time her clothes were not lucky enough to go for the trip. She'd let out a frustrated squeak as she fought to escape her own blouse and upon doing so would see her escape was but a short run away, through the concave openings in the steel wall that was the fence. She whimpered as she looked back at her clothes.

"...And I thought the orange juice stain was bad ... what's mom gonna say when I come home naked?" Lexi thought, eyes again darting each way. "I don't really have much of a choice though..."

Lexi would take one more look at her clothes and then another at the exit. Another idea struck her ... but could she do it?

The tiny Lexi would walk onto a single fiber of her fallen blouse and she'd notice the tingling sensation against her feet as she walked on it, again feeling like static electricity. She knelt on the blouse and thought hard. Sure enough the garment would shrink to approximately her size, although her other clothes were still way too big for her.


"Better than nothing ..." she groaned, yanking the mini blouse and dashing under the chain link fence, officially on the other side to freedom now. Well, freedom being a relative term at this point.

She struggled to put on the blouse which still sizzled from size alterations and the turmoil it had been through. She sighed, doing her best to cover her lower half despite the fact that likely nobody could see her at this size.

"...Maybe Tinkerbell has some pants I could borrow..." the distraught Lexi would groan as she continued a slow walk through the grass. "...strangely enough I think Leah would actually be jealous of me right now"

Josh would examine his freshly returned cell phone with skepticism as he hovered around the departing tour group, having just wrapped up a somewhat shortened tour of the facility. Whatever had happened in the lower levels indeed awakened some suspicions and sent some of the staff usually in charge of the touring off to inspect the damages. This of course would only fuel the conspiracy theories of one Joshua James.

"I told you ..." an exasperated Leah would sigh, being able to stand no more of Joshs' paranoid phone inspection, "they didn't put anything on your phone ..."

"And you'd know? They're not going to make it obvious, they could've used nanobots, they could've hacked into the phone's triangulation GPS signal ..." Josh postulated as the 2 walked towards the exit of the facility.

"Dude, they had your phone for like ... not even an hour!" Leah sighed, noticeably upset, although her mind was likely elsewhere.

"Okay okay ... geez ... I'm just sayin..." Josh would mutter, scrolling through his contacts and other content on his phone to ensure nothing was wiped or changed, "...between that and the weird noise downstairs, I mean you heard that right? Something clearly ignited ... I believe it was the chemical reaction of enormite metal with ..."

"Oh for fucks sake, Josh!" Leah would snap, before hastily covering her mouth, appearing guilty as hell, "S-Sorry ... I'm just worried ... I hope Lexi is okay ... she hasn't answered any of my messages since she got kicked off the tour ... I know I was a bit harsh on her but I hope she isn't angry with me"

"Lexi seemed cool" Josh would note, almost entirely glossing over Leah's concern for her best friend, "a bit sassy, I kinda liked the way she just told it like it was..."

"Yeah... that's ... something she does..." Leah nods before then muttering "...sometimes to her detriment"

To that end, there would be some sobbing heard from inside a women's room bathroom stall, belonging to none other than the hobbled and half naked Lexi, as she sat atop a toilet seat to avoid showing her bare legs, instead hugging them to herself as she continued to hold back massive sobs.

"Um ... Miss?" she'd hear a female voice from the stall adjacent, "I don't mean to intrude but ... um ... do you need a tampon?"

"N-N-Nuh....." Lexi would groan under her breath, her face still mashed up to her knee in desperation.

"Are you okay?" the young lady would ask. Her voice sounded faintly familiar.

"N-Not really no ..." Lexi would gurgle. She appreciated the other woman's concern but there wasn't much to be said. Not that anybody would believe that she somehow got caught up in some kind of lab accident, shrank herself, almost died and was now hiding out in a bookstore's public restroom in only a tattered blouse.

"H-Hey ... you should familiar, hon" the girl would note "You're Lexi, right?"

"Yeah..." Lexi would sniffle and nod, pressing her thumbs to her eyebrows as she once again felt a wave of sickness, she'd groan, "ugh not again ..."

"I can ... leave you alone ... I just remember you from the cheer group ... you were ... really cool, if you don't mind my saying" the other girl would say, "a bit surprised we didn't see you at the tryouts"

Lexi would nod before realizing who the other woman was, or at least what she had looked like based on their brief meeting.

"The cheer tryouts?" Lexi would repeat dumbfoundedly

"Yeah they wrapped up a little while ago ... but ... seems you're not feeling too well.. if you want I can try to talk to the other girls about giving you another go ... they really liked your spunk ... and ... well, yknow, that's like 90% of what we do" the girl would offer, trying to cheer up the clearly distraught Alexis Cole.

"Oh...!" Lexi would nod surprised, "Umm... sure! That would be nice ...although right now I could really use a pair of pants..."

To this, there would be another pause. It was admittedly an odd thing to say to another in a bathroom.

"Oh? Um... well ... can't really help you there ... although if you wanna pass me some money under the stall ,I could buy you a pair...?" the lady offered

"That's super nice of you but uh ... don't have a wallet either ... it's a long story ..." Lexi sighed, feeling like a total loser at this moment.

"W-Well hold on ... I'm not going to leave you in there like that ..."

"Trust me, I've been worse..." Lexi would groan, again feeling the sparks surround her but thankfully she wasn't shrinking. This would be a VERY inopportune time to do so to say the least.

"Hm... I'll be right back, okay?" the other lady would say

"Hon, I really can't ask you to ..." Lexi would stammer,

"You stay right there, okay? We're going to turn this day around, I promise"

With that, Lexi would watch as a pair of female legs departed through the bathroom door.

"Do I stay and wait? Do I make a break for it? Do I get off this toilet seat so I at least don't have an embarassing size fiasco?"

These were all valid thoughts that coursed through Lexi's head at that moment.

Elsewhere though, in the underbelly of Enormo Enterprises, other thoughts were being had and they were being had by some of the gentlemen in charge of the aforementioned fiasco. At the forefront of it all stood a shocked and irrate Dr. Maximillian E. Mumford, looking over the significant damage in the Delta Research facility.

"How...?" Max would simply ask, looking over towards his right hand man, Dr. Hoffnung, as well as a trio of other scientists who all echoed the same vacant stares. After a few more moments of the uncomfortable silence, Max would repeat the query, "HOW?!"

"I don't... I don't know sir..." Trevor answered, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible, "but let's not make a thing of this before ..."

"Before what? Exposure is drawn to what we were working on? The press gets here? What? In what situation is the not making a thing of this a feasible scenario?!" Max would explode, ignoring the pair of men standing guard at the entrance and walking in anyway.

"Um sir...?" Trevor would caution, "you may not want to walk in there, we're not sure if any radiation isn't still present in the ..."

"Yes! I think I know what could be in the air ..." Dr. Max clapped back as he suddenly could be seen wearing what equated to a metallic covid-19 face covering that slammed shut over his mouth to prevent any possible inhaling of toxins. "...I made the damn thing after all..."


Upon inspecting the scene, along with a few other men in hazmat materials, he would see only a few clues. The experimental container labeled 287 had been opened but there was nothing inside. There was all kinds of shattered glass and metal from the machine that had not only been fired off but fired off improperly.

"It's almost as if ... something exceeded the size of the test ... but it fired off anyway!" Max would mutter, investigating further.

Around this time is when the 3 men in Hazmat suits would nod and wave to the other men, letting them know it was okay to enter as most of the truly dangerous debris had been removed.

"I'd still watch yourself, there's a lot of fragmented glass in there" one would caution to the others as they slowly made their way in.

Trevor would notice something even more peculiar as he cited one of the few remaining working computer monitors. It was green, and through the cracks read the words "DELTA EXPERIMENT 287 SUCCESS"

"Um ...sir?" Trevor would nod, pointing over to the monitor

"Experiment success?!" Dr. Max would exclaim, "Nein nein! That is impossible!! The experiment was NEVER a success!!"

To this, the men behind him would look a bit skeptical, some even stifling chuckles.

"...is what I would say if I were NOT the scientific genius in here!! So of COURSE it was a success!!" Max would exclaim, hand raised high with a victorious look on his mostly covered face, "You see? I told you Operation Delta was coming along brilliantly!"

"And ... the room exploding... also part of the plan?" Trevor would mutter

"You will be doing the shutting up now!" Max would retort, none too pleased as he leaned in uncomfortably close to his cohorts stunned face.

After a few more moments had passed Trevor would go ahead and point out the obvious, "Well sir, even if that's the case ... we don't have the subject ..."

Max would seize the container on the wall labeled 287 and look down into it, seeing nothing save for a few fragments of metallic dust and maybe some mercury residue.

"Ah-ha! That is where you are wrong! It is obvious the experiment, which was CLEARLY successful produced FASCINATING results! Why it's better than we thought ... the subject was able to shrink to microscopic form ...!" Dr. Maximilian would postulate, drawing much ire from his peers.

"Um ... then why can't we see anything?"

"Do you not know what this word means?!" Max would shake his head in disgust, "They can't be seen!! They are ... they are ... very small!! Ugh! I don't know why I bother!"

With this Trevor would shake his head as the determined Doctor would carefully handle the plastic casing and bring it forth for more investigation. It was at this moment Trevor decided to do some investigating of his own, looking further into the wreckage by the ignition switch and seeing the remains of a backpack. The kind of purple backpack a college student would carry. Despite its disrepair, part of the backpack was still legible, it seemed to be a 3 letter set of initials ... AEC.

Alexis Elizabeth Cole would meanwhile be waiting patiently in the bathroom, strangely calm considering the whole ordeal. To her surprise, a pair of sweats with the Miniborough University Logo on them came from underneath the bathroom stall door.

"Don't know if they're your size, I kinda guessed..." the other girl would chuckle sheepishly, "medium? always a safe bet"

"You'd be surprised..." Lexi would mutter a bit cheeky as she stood up and put on the pants. "I seriously can't thank you enough ... I promise I'll pay you back!"

Lexi, still beat red made her way out of the bathroom stall to see the girl, a blonde who was maybe an inch or so taller than her grapple her into a powerful upper body hug.

"Don't mention it, Lexi for real ..."the blonde girl would say. She was quite striking, standing at about 5'6, although hard to tell exact height with her sensible blue heels that added maybe half an inch to an inch. Her azure eyes would be a bit dimmer in the bathroom ambience but one could see they would really shine in open sunlight. From her head hung a beautiful and lengthy tuft of blonde hair covering a portion of her blue top which of course matched the blue skirt and heels nicely. "My name's Chrissy by the way"

"I thought I recognized your voice ..." Lexi would nod with a smile, "...I ... I really don't know what to say..."

"Hey, I'm new around here and I just .. I don't know, wanna make friends and something about you really took me from the beginning ..." Chrissy would add, her voice perhaps lending another clue to her origins.

"You're not from around here, are you?" Lexi would ask

"Alabama" Chrissy would say with a cheeky grin, overdoing the accent now but her natural voice did have a hint of a southern accent, although nothing too glaring. "Southern hospitality, yknow? Not gonna let you wander out there half naked and all ... although you do have me a bit worried, with your ... arm and your shirt, were you in a fight or something?"

"Again, I'd rather not say..." Lexi responded as she shook her head. "I think I just need to lay down ..."

"You need a ride anywhere?" Chrissy asked

"Oh I couldn't ..." Lexi stammered, "not after everything you've done..."

"Non-sense ... first 10 miles are free, cmon" Chrissy would smirk as the 2 girls faded out of the bathroom and down the hall

"and after the first 10...?"

"We'll work something out" the blonde would wink.

Josh and Leah would be departing around this time from the tour of Enormo with more questions than answers.

"What do you think Project Delta is?" Josh would ask Leah

"What do you mean?" Leah replied

"Well that big scary science dude kept mentioning something about Project Delta, plus it was on some of the beakers they had in the labs and it appeared again on ..." Josh would continue

"Josh I have no idea what Project Delta is or Southwest Delta or Delta Dental!" Leah snapped,

"...well the 2nd one was a popular airline and the third was a dental in... okay you were being sarcastic with that ... that's ... that's my bad .." Josh frowned, "sorry I'm a bit socially awkward ..."

"It's ... it's fine" Leah nodded, trying to ease up. as Josh kind of took his own detour, looking just over a chain link fence around the facility, "I should take more time to consider the things you say and ..."

"Is that a pair of pants out in the field?!" Josh would remark

"A pair of pants in the ... what are you even?! Oh ... it ... it is a pair of pants..." Leah would raise an eyebrow, noticing the same thing that Josh had, along with some other clothing items. "Why ... would there be ..."

Josh grinned and took a step towards the fence, even putting his hand on it, "Give me a lift?"

"What? No! I'm not going to ... Josh, we could get in big trouble just for being around here!" Leah whimpered, pacing away from him just in case any security wandered by.

"C'mon, they're all too distracted from the nuclear meltdown" Josh replied

"There was no meltdown" Leah replied in frustration

"Then what do you call that exploding sound? What if someone was vaporized and those are their pants ... and their ... bra?" he remarked, noticing the undergarments too.

"Look, if you wanna get in trouble with the police or whoever else fetching some girls pants and undies, go ahead, I'm uh ... I'm gonna head home" Leah would groan, hands in her pocket as she'd try calling Lexi one more time. It was at this moment Josh's eyes widened a bit but he didn't want to disturb Leah yet again. Still, he could swear the cell phone peeking out of the pocket on the pants lit up for a moment when Leah had called it.

The year was 2005 and a young Leah and Lexi were watching Peter Pan ... well kind of. Leah was trying to watch while a hyperactive young Lexi was running around her in a circle, hugging a blanket and throwing specks of popcorn in her hair.

"Would you cut that out?" Leah would snap with a loud giggle, getting up to push Lexi before suddenly a familiar face appeared on the screen.

"Wait! Wait! Wait!" Lexi would giggle, pointing to the screen, "Tink..."

And that's when one of the few things that could calm hyperactive Lexi down would appear. The wondrous, sparkling and larger than life Tinkerbell. Okay, so maybe larger than life wasn't exactly accuate but Lexi, and to a lesser degree, Leah loved the little fairy whenever she would appear on screen. She especially enjoyed Tinkerbell's most memorable quote. It went something like this.

...

Anyways, Leah and Lexi would watch Peter Pan almost every weekend for a whole winter it seemed. Then they'd play leprechauns during the spring time. They'd re-enact Alice in Wonderland every so often during their childhood. See a pattern?

While they had many other things in common, best friends Lexi and Leah had a strange interest in size changing and shrinking in particular. They'd often imagine one or the other being tiny and going on all kinds of strange adventures. It was one summer where Leah would scribble up the idea of The Shrinking Girls, a duo named Lexi and Leah who would shrink and grow, beating up bad guys and spouting all the Saturday morning catchphrases you could handle like "It's shrinkin' time!" or "Looks like you just hit the small time"

That was the past though, and fantasy very rarely becomes reality, no matter how wide eyed and even naive young, and even older Lexi could be. It was all meant to stay in the past. Just a silly fantasy. Never meant to come to pass.

Then why was it, she ... Lexi, the girl who tried to make everyday into a Disney type fantasy found herself in the middle of a fantastical nightmare? Staring up at her pale gray ceiling trying to ignore the fact that her body still involuntarily twitched and shook. Every now and then she could feel her limbs receding a bit ... was she trying to shrink or just making awkward attempts to get more comfortable in bed? Neither possibility brought her much comfort.

Still, as she swam in her anxiety, there was another voice in her head and another feeling in her heart.

"Lex, you wanted this your whole life ..." the voice said, presumably coming from her inner child and inner self, "you wanted to shrink ... you wanted to be able to shrink STUFF, you made a character with your bestie called the Shrinking Girl! This is your time, go out there and stand tall ... er ... you know what I mean, sorry ..."

Lexi would let out a dejected sigh.

"I don't know if I can do it, inner voice..." the defeated Lexi would sigh as she schlupped over to the right side of her bed.

"You CAN do it! Remember what Tinkerbell said ..."

"Tinkerbell didn't talk!" Lexi would overreact, although not vocally. This was a very surreal mental moment after all.

Truth is, every hero ... hell every person ... has had that moment when they doubt themselves. When they're granted an opportunity and no matter how grand it is, they question if they can actually do it. Or if they actually WANT to do it. Here Lexi was, presented with a possibly horrible curse ... but also potentially an awe-inspiring gift.

As her fingertips crackled from beneath the blankets, Lexi slowly sat up.

"I'm not going to let my moment of doubt be my moment of definition" she'd utter

With that, the still nervous but confident girl would step out of bed, take a few steps towards the mirror and give herself a bit of a sheepish smile.

"Okay Lex..." she'd whisper to herself, raising both arms above her head, "let's see what you can do ..."

She'd exhale again, drop the arms and give herself a nervous grin, "w-well here I am ... same size as before ... maybe it was a fluke?"

At that, she would dip again, shrinking to a little under 4 feet tall, a good amount under the summit of her dresser.

"Not a fluke! Not a fluke!" she'd think before regaining her composure, planting her feet firmly on the ground, feeling the surge again but in an empowering way, an enlightening way. She'd apply a little pressure to her right foot, almost as if hitting the gas on a car and restore the rest of her height, standing again at 5'4, her tank top only a little disheveled from the transition.

"Gotta work on the clothes ..." she muttered to herself, feeling the fibers of the tank top in her thumb and index finger as she follied with them, "I was able to shrink my clothes with me sometimes ..." she thought to herself.

Thought ... thinking ... thoughts ... wait, maybe that was it...?

"Is it as simple as thinking of it?" she thought

Testing this theory, she'd press on the strap of her tank top again, and although it was slight she could see tiny sparks emit from the surface. "S-So I can shrink ... the clothes? or myself? So ... pr-probably ... both?"

She'd breathe again, wondering why this newfound ability didn't include a user manual and she'd take a long breath, and then another, and then another.

"Holy crap!" the voice in her head awoke, "it's working!"

What was working was the fact that Lexi was dwindling with each breath ; her size, and more importantly, that of her clothes, dwindling in synchronicity. After just a dozen or so breaths, Lexi would find herself at the 3 inch size she was at the lab, except without the same stress as that horrific escape.

Now that she was at her new reduced stature, Lexi would notice a great many things. "My room is a bit bigger than I thought and also ... I REALLY need to clean up under here..."

She'd take a few awkward steps forward, her mind still spinning from the prospect of exploring her own bed from this new perspective. The sights of balled up socks and old dusty notebooks would become things of legend. One sock ball would equal her in height and appear as stalwart as a sturdy boulder.

It was after a few moments she felt an uneasiness set in.

She wasn't alone.

There was no other person in the room with her but she suspected she knew what other creature resided alongside her.

"H-Here Tiny..." she'd fearfully utter out loud, her sight not really adjusted to this new level of darkness such as a cat's would be. She could only hear his low menacing growl ... or perhaps it was a meow. She could perceive the feline's presence but was incapable of sensing his exact location and at her current mouse size ... that could prove to be quite troublesome.

Then came the thunder.

The tiny girl would be struck with the force of a freighter, a beleaguring blow delivered by the feline featherweight who was no longer so light on his feet compared to his diminished opposition.

"Tiny?" Lexi whimpered, now hobbled on her side as the cat licked his lips and tilted his head when confronted by the sight of his owner now below him. "Tiny... it's me ... it's Lexi ..."

Lexi wasn't sure she was quite ready for this test and so her legs began to frantically find ground to run on as she pulled herself up. She wasn't wounded, but she definitely had the wind knocked out of her for a second by his intitial pounce. Still he had shown some restraint by not using the full length of his claws or pinning her outright, something he was more then capable of doing.

Lexi would desperately scramble towards what little light shone through the cavity between the floor and her bedskirt.

Worse yet, she'd feel the furry feline's ferocious frenzy as he attempted several consecutive swipes at her exposed ankles.

Finally feeling brave enough to at least address her catagonist, she'd turn, although by now she was far enough out from under the bed to attempt growing.

"Tiny!" she'd snap again, except this time her size would back it up as she slowly grew back to her normal height, tank top staying on. "Huh. That worked. Neat"

Tiny backed away, appearing scared now. Imagine stalking a "mouse" only to have it outgain you in size in seconds. Surely the tables had turned but it wasn't Lexi's intent to frighten the poor thing.

"Awwww cmon, you didn't know ..." Lexi would smirk softly, stroking her feline friend as best as she could while he retreated to his stay under the bed, "I'd probably try to eat me too..."

She'd sigh now and decide to leave her faithful feline alone as he seemed to be licking his proverbial wounds. Oh wait, he was ACTUALLY licking himself. Hey, he's a cat. That's not really that weird.

"Huh. Only 8 o clock on my first day of school and I'm at home alone with my cat..." Lexi sighed, her parents both out late and her newfound friend Chrissy having dropped her there despite protests to the contrary. "I really do owe that girl a milkshake or something ... or maybe my phone number..."

Lexi would finally exit her bedroom after much time within, only to to be greeted by a knocking at the door. "Oh?" she'd blush, still wearing just a tank top and black panties, she'd duck back into the security of her room before emerging with the Miniborough themed pants that Chrissy had bought her.

"Um... hello?" the cautious Lexi would ask, approaching the door but keeping her distance until she could see who it was better. It was Josh

He would wave awkwardly through the window just by the door until Lexi would pry it open enough.

"H-Hey ... I uh ... just uh ..." Josh would stammer but that wasn't even close to the weirdest thing about this interaction. That would be the contents of his hands which held her jeans from before, her cell phone and ... her bra?
"...thought you might want your stuff back ... umm... probably think it's weird I came to your house but ..."

Lexi would give him an uncomfortable smile. She did INDEED think it weird but she was also somewhat relieved. In the aftermath of the accident she hadn't even thought about her cell phone. The other clothes were likely unsalvagable anyhow and ... well, it couldn't be helped that her bra and panties ended up in the fray, confusing enough as it had been that Josh was holding them.

"Hey... um ... heh... thanks" Lexi would reply, not being sure of what else to say, "I uh ... thanks"

"No problem" Josh would reply, a strangely heartwarming smile on his face, "Y-You're probably wondering how I knew it was you"

Lexi would gently seize the belongings back and reveal her phone to him which thankfully still had 15% charge and a picture of her and Leah as the cover photo, "...I could probably guess"

"I realize I could've just ... waited until I saw you on campus tomorrow..." Josh sighed, scratching the back of his head with an embarassed grin, "but then ... returning a girl's clothes in public? Kind of looks ... sketchy..."

"Yeah! Yeah no, I ... uh ... I getcha" Lexi would giggle a bit

"So I hope you don't mind but I saw your name on the tour roster and of course I knew you from Leah and well ... meeting you so I uh ... googled your address and ..."

"You GOOGLED me, you monster!" Lexi would say with a smirk, but she meant no harm by it. Josh luckily could understand and take the joke.

"I also just ... wanted to make sure you were okay..." Josh nodded

"I appreciate that" Lexi would blush, looking away for a bit, "but ... yeah ... I'm ... I'm okay ... relatively speaking ... but yeah... I mean, why wouldn't I be?"

What followed was an awkward pause between the two that likely only lasted a few seconds but came off feeling like much more than that.

"...Right. The clothes in the field. And the cell phone" Lexi would bluntly say out loud.

"Heh ... yeah ... and uh ... maybe text your friend Leah back" Josh would add, "she's worried about you"

"Oh shit, right! What did you tell her?" Lexi would ask

"I uh ... actually ... didn't tell her ... I think I was getting on her nerves..." Josh would grimace and shrug. "But the important thing is you're safe"

Lexi would smile and open the door fully, coming out to hug the helpful new friend, Josh.

"Thanks again ... I ... I really mean it, I just seem a bit out of it right now" Lexi would nod and nervously chuckle

"Nah nah I get it... been a ... weird day ... I did more studying up on Enormo by the way..." Josh would add, drawing an understandable lurch from Lexi

"Ummmm, you mind if we ... DON'T talk about that company right now??" Lexi would nervously giggle as she shrank back into the doorway. After all, shrinking was something Lexi did quite well.

The machinery hissed, cool and calm while an equally frigid and calculated man pursued his work carefully, controlling a robot hand through use of a remote glove worn on his human hand. That is to suggest Dr. Maximillian E Mumford HAD much humanity left at this point. The man practically operated like a machine as he used his microscopes and other periphery to ascertain that which had eluded him to this point.

"Ah-ha!" the gloating Dr. would enunciate before seemingly taking it back. His assistant, Dr. Hoffnung seemed unamused and frankly, unimpressed.

"Doctor..." Trevor hemmed and hawed, "I think it's safe to say that whatever happened in the chamber wasn't normal and also didn't result in the showing we wanted..."

Dr. Max wasn't having any of this talk though.

"I'm not having any of this kind of talking!" the cruel Dr. remarked back, still staring carefully at that lone plastic container which he had under many plates, trying to magnify it as much as possible while his scientific goggles tried to give him any advantage possible. "There MUST be something here, the machine went off, we know that for a fact!"

"We also know that whatever triggered it weighed over 150 pounds, which exceeds the experiments limitations!" Trevor postulated, noting the last known weight measurement the plate on the ground had taken before executing ... or trying to execute, the Delta experiment.

"That is only MORE evidence that there IS a subject 287 ..." Dr. Max would shake his head defiantly

"Then where are they? WHAT are they?" Trevor would ask, an eyebrow raised. He, as well as Max had already pondered the very likely possibility that whatever triggered the machine was human. There were too many signs of it. The discarded backpack, the weight measurements and what little of the security footage that could be retrieved through the cloud would suggest as much. A human female, even. But of course, that wasn't the original intent of Project Delta and that would mean an error was made, perhaps even a grave one. Now to Trevor Hoffnung, that was serious business, particularly if he felt another human being was in some kind of danger. Max only cared about one thing however. An error. How could there be an error in one of HIS scientific processes? He was infallible, and by association anything that he designed was such.

"Stay here and watch the sample" Dr. Max would instruct, ignoring his assistant yet again while he departed the scene, "I'm going to get my spectrometer and see if we can't find anything in there ... some kind of clue or artifact left behind"

"There's nothing in the container..." Trevor would finally cede, "it's not microscopic, it's not subatomic, it's just ... not there ..."

"THAT IS ENOUGH!!" Max would shout, shaking his head and beginning to boil over, "You are giving me the headache! Now go! I will finish this investigation myself for the evening..."

"Do what you want..." Trevor would exhale, a rare loss of composure for the gentleman as he passed the slumped over Doctor on his way out of the lab.

Dr. Max took further offense to this but ultimately allowed Trevor out of the room. After all he had bigger fish to fry... or perhaps, smaller ones. Before Trevor cleared the threshold however, the Doctor had another thought.

"One more thing..." Max would add. Trevor would reluctantly stop long enough to listen

"Did you do as I instructed with that boy's phone ... the self proclaimed scientist always trying to get away with the picture taking?" Max asked

"What? N-No ... that was a horribly unethical idea, sir ... I honestly thought you were joking" Trevor replied

"Ah, you're going soft on me, Trevor..." Max sighed, before smirking a bit, "...good thing I did it myself then"

Trevor would just let out a disappointed murmur as he faded down the hall.

Elsewhere, a father and daughter would be sitting down to a small dinner. Not a very uncommon scene naturally, although this particular one would tie in nicely with the current goings on.

"You've been kind of quiet tonight, Leah..." Dave would ask his young daughter Leah while taking another modest spoonful of spaghetti from the large bowl located in the center of the table.

"Y-Yeah ... I don't know ..." Leah murmured, "just thinking about ... homework and stuff ... lots to do, yknow? College time ...n-not that that I regret coming to visit you, of course"

"Y'know ... if you're going to lie, you can at least try harder" Dave would smirk

"Huh? No, Dad, I really DO enjoy spending time with you..." Leah would frown, her cell phone secretly balanced precariously on her thigh to glance at every so often

"That's not what I meant" Dave replied, shaking his head, "I mean the homework thing ... I know you care about your grades but I've never seen you get so distracted about HOMEWORK ... so maybe there's something else you'd like to talk about?"

To this, Leah would go silent, not even sure where to begin. She'd carefully pluck up a small sampling of spaghetti from her plate, entangling the noodles with the fork, and having a bite

"The pasta's good" she'd nod.

This would be followed with more awkward silence.

"So, you've probably heard..." Leah's dad would sigh, realizing he couldn't quite crack whatever was troubling his daughter at the moment, "...there was sort of a ... thing at Enormo that happened"

"Oh?" she nodded, not wanting to say too much about that but it had dawned on her that it could be worse than people were saying. If anybody would know, it would possibly be her dad, being an employee of the shady conglomerate.

"It's ... probably nothing serious" he nodded, trying to reassure Leah, although maybe it wasn't so much her he was secretly trying to calm down, "you'll probably hear some crazy rumors and things about it, but just ... I don't know ... don't believe what you read online, some people are just conspiracy nuts about everything"

"Heh, it's all good, Dad" Leah would nod, trying to hasten her pace eating and salvage some sense of normalcy within the father/daughter moment that was currently transpiring. "I'm not like that ... I don't really believe that paranoid, wackjob kind of stuff"

Almost right on cue to illustrate some kind of example would sit a young man on his computer, finishing up a thorough internet search.

"Oh man ..." Josh would think to himself, "I sure do love this paranoid, wackjob kind of stuff"

Of course in his case, the comment would be more tongue in cheek. He wasn't stupid, far from it. He was basically a straight A student, with the exception of a couple times his grades may have slipped due to overinvolvement in video games or comic books but he loved science, and had a strong passion for gathering more knowledge. To some though, he knew he was viewed as a "wackjob" but he didn't care so much about what those people thought. After all, he had earlier vaulted over a fence to retrieve a stray pair of pants from the exterior of a large scientific facility known to be dealing in oddities and perhaps even criminal activity.

"Dr. Max cites huge financial success from Enormite production as reason for expanding research in nano-metals..." Josh would read to himself, going over many articles about Enormo spanning from the last 5-10 years. One thing was for sure. Silly consumer products like office supplies and other things that bore the Enormo name on the back of the box in a place most people wouldn't even look simply funded and masked the fact that the company had several shady deals in place with unsavory types and they were working on something much more than an opposable paper clip. Josh was determined to get to the bottom of it. At any cost.

"Dad?" Leah asked, meanwhile, feeling her phone twitch and her heartrate momentarily spike upon seeing Lexi's name on her text screen, "C-Could I be excused?"

"Oh, um... sure honey..." Dave would nod, "It's getting kind of late anyhow, and you probably need to finish unpacking your things and whatnot ... I appreciate you spending time with your boring ol dad..."

"Oh non-sense!" Leah smiled a bit warmly as she took her cell phone and stashed it, then gave her dad a loving hug and kiss, departing down the hallway to feverishly poke at her smartphone's buttons as if they were bubble wrap.

"Hey Leah ... I'm okay ... just was kinda pissed about what happened is all... I hate that Mad Max guy" Lexi's text would read to Leah.

"Lexi ... what happened to you?" Leah would answer back, "I heard you missed the cheer tryouts"

"I was feeling sick" Lexi would respond with a sad face, "but I met someone who may be able to get me a second tryout opportunity so ..." she'd end with a fingers crossed emote. Leah would smile at this. Lexi always had a way of bouncing back. Perhaps her worrying was unwarranted. She could definitely agree on one thing about the whole ordeal. That Mad Max guy sure was an asshole.

"That Mad Max guy sure is an asshole..." a grumbly portly fellow would continue on, having a near midnight conversation with his fellow sanitation officer friend as they backed in slowly through a gate to the innards and cellar of Enormo Enterprises after hours.

"Yeah but whatever, a job's a job ... they want all this stuff out of here, or as much as possible" the more trim fellow would nod, dressed in a similarly bright orange and yellow safety vest. In the passenger seat of the large garbage truck, crawling out now would be a most unlikely person. Joshua James ... or JJ as he was known in some circles.

"Alright JJ" one of the gruff men would say, giving him a pat on the back, "We're even ... but we can't really do much to protect you from here on out, okay? Not sure what was so important here but uh ... yeah, just look out for those guys"

At that, the man would point to a team of people wearing white hazmats suits, carrying things in and out of the back door to the facility, all adorned with Enormo Enterprise insignia.

Josh would nod at this, giving the men a confident salute, "Thanks again, man, I won't forget this"

With that, Josh would slowly make his way in through the back, wearing a blacked zipped up fleece and a white dress shirt underneath to appear as a science intern. He also had an attaché case on his person and a doctored up name badge just in case anyone had questioned him, although hopefully it wouldn't come to that point. He seemed relatively unphased as he simply walked through the hectic hallways of the basement, although keeping composure would be important if he didn't want to be caught or suspected. Still, the men coming down the hall across from him were likely focused on other matters, like evidence destroying or burying the truth.

It wouldn't take very long to find the room most affected by the accident as it was police taped off and labeled as hazardous. Sounded like the perfect place to start. Of course getting inside would be no easy feat with so much security around but perhaps Josh wouldn't have to. He was only looking for paperwork or any kind of evidence of a ... Project Delta. It was the one thing that came up the most during his deep dive searches into the company's wrongdoings and he strongly suspected it had a tie to whatever happened down there and maybe even effected his new friend Lexi. At least ... he considered them friends. I mean, you bring someone their clothes back, that's a pretty friendly thing to do, right?

"Mister?" one of the men would stop the "credentialed" Josh James, "You can't be down here"

"Ahem, my apologies" the young man would nod, deepening his voice to maintain a sense of professionalism as he quickly showed the badge and withdrew it, "I'm here as an intern ... I left my research papers up in my office, and I really need them ... I could get in big trouble if I don't finish this project by tomorrow morning ..."

The man would look Josh over and ponder the story. It didn't quite add up but at the same time, his main priority was to clear the cellar of all evidence. To draw extra attention to a potential college student and cause a scene may not have been worth it at that time.

"Okay ... well, then head up the stairs on the right. This is a restricted area." the man would firmly warn Josh who would take the warning with a graceful nod and a quick trip up the stairs.

That was close, Josh would think, his heart still pounding. He wasn't immune from nerves but he was surprisingly decent at handling heated situations for someone who otherwise struggled at times with socializing and friend circles. He'd try the door to floor 2 but it was locked. He'd sigh and keep going up the stairs to floor 3. Also locked. Finally floor 4 would be openable and by doing so, he would hear a conversation, however faint, taking place at the very end of the hallway.

"Look, we'll talk about this later, Derek..." the man would sigh, on the phone with his teenaged son, "There's leftovers in the fridge but I really don't like you being out so late ... I told you to call me when you got home ... well that's different, I got called into work ... I ... honestly am not sure why but my boss said it was important so ... okay, we'll talk in the morning, just ... have something to eat, okay? And get to sleep soon! It's a school night"

With that, the beleaguered Dave Henderson would hang up the phone, looking over some things. As one of Enormo's lead accountants, and one of the few to live locally, he was brought in to render an update to the financial projections that seemed rather urgent. It was likely due to the accident and its potential impact on cost to profit margins. After all, there was bound to be a multitude of repairs needed, not to mention behind the scenes costs like reestablishing trust in the community... something the company was frankly short on as it was.

Josh would tiptoe past the man's office and continue on his way.

Meanwhile, Dave would research further and notice something peculiar. On the itemized list of machinery classified as "damaged" was a proton accelerator, a particle collider and something called a tectonic sizing plate. None of those were things the company had ever ordered before, not even on a smaller scale and the cost of each item well exceeded 6 figures. He wrinkled his brow. "I'm not sure what the finance department expects me to do with these numbers but its bad all the way around... we're looking at potential bankruptcy unless the company is really serious about this Delta project..." Dave thought to himself. He still wasn't sure what the project was, as it would be kept under wraps, but whatever it was seemed to be worth some hefty investments in terms of time, human resources and equipment.

More clues could be found on Project Delta however, on the 5th floor which is where Josh would find himself next.

Down this hallway he could hear another conversation taking place but this time he could hear both men involved, and it was honestly quite easy to do so when one spoke louder than a microphone even through closed doors.

"Okay! Okay ..." the one man said. His voice sounded familiar and although Josh had only heard him speak once, as his role in the tour had been brief, it was definitely the same man that had kicked Lexi off the tour, Dr. Maximillian E. Mumford. "I admit it! I may have been a little HARSH on you, Dr. Jacob..."

"It's ... It's Joseph, sir but it's okay" the tired older man would yield, equally confused as to why he had been summoned so late.

"Nein, it is NOT okay!" Max would retort. Even in politeness the man was loud as a sailor and as Josh crept up, the words became clearer and clearer. The windows surrounding the office were a bit glossy, and tinted even, although that didn't mean Josh would be safe from detection. In fact they could be one way mirrors where they could see outside but not vice versa. Just in case, Josh opted to hang around the opposite side of the hallway, still within a good distance to hear any particularly damning admissions.

"Oh!" Josh would utter to himself, remembering that very point. He'd carefully dangle his cell phone out from his pocket and activate the voice recorder.

"Dr. Joseph, you've been a valued member of this time and I was WAY too rude to you the other day" Maximillian would continue, "Now I know you've contributed a lot to this company and that is one of the reasons I've called you up here today... you see... we've had a problem... a setback, it regrets me to say"

"Okay..." Joseph would nod, trying to show some sympathy, "I'm sorry to hear that but isn't this something we could've discussed in the morning?"

"DISCUSSED IN THE MORNING?!" the bombastic Doctor would snap, his short temper fuse lit for just a moment, before extinguishing once more, "Discussed in the morning... um... no ... no see this is one of those ... emergencies..."

"Oh ... is anybody hurt?" Joseph would ask

"Well ... we don't know" Max would say with a nervous smile on his face. The smile didn't exactly suggest sympathy however, "But ... it pertains to Project Delta ... and the key ... from the machine was left inside..."

"Oh..." Joseph uttered, his heart sinking quite a bit.

"Yeah. Oh." Max would sigh, "Look, it gives me no pleasure to do this..."

"Sir, I ..."

"Let me finish!" Max would snap again, the scientist always but one word away from another outburst. "I know you're a hard worker and you're diligent. I also know it was your job to keep the machine well guarded and locked up... and certainly not with the only key used to activate it ..."

At this, Joseph would hang his head , looking regretful. "I feared the explosion downstairs was from ..."

"Explosion? Explosion...." Max would smile and laugh a bit, the sight honestly a bit jarring more than anything, "There was no explosion..."

"But I swear I heard a ..."

"No... no no no no... everybody's FINE, there was no explosion ... I mean yes, there were some sparks and fire and ... well, a lot of components are critically damaged but no explosion ... in fact the room has been perfectly cleared to work in again.... once we get some of the shrapnel out..." the doctor would assess, again seeming strangely calm about a potentially precarious situation for him and his company.

"Does ... Edward know about this?" Joseph would ask, to which the Dr. would grow irrate

"NO EDWARD DOES NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS! We don't need that geezer getting involved! I handle the science, he handles the business! We're both intelligent men, Dr. and this mistake can be put behind us soon enough ..." Maximillian added, sliding a file over to Joseph. The file said "PROJECT DELTA - UPDATED PLANS" "I've looked extensively into the machine, it's damages and what may have led to it ... I've proposed an upgrade to the machine and some ideas to increase efficiency and productivity"

At this, Joseph would open the file and marvel at its contents, "well this is all very impressive Doctor but ... can we afford this? And what is ... this... some kind of ... laser grid?""

"A necessary evil, I'm afraid" the Dr would tout, "We can't have anybody unauthorized getting close to the machine again, the results could be disastrous!"

"Have you ... gone over these plans with Dr. Hoffnung, sir?" Joseph would ask, "these are pretty drastic changes"

"Oh don't worry about Dr. Hoffnung, he's my second in command and he signed off on everything, we need you to get to work on this as soon as possible. You and Dr. Hoffnung, along with my most trusted staff and advisors will be needed to make sure Project Delta 2.0 goes as smoothly as possible..." the lying Doctor would explain

Joseph still looked uneasy. Dr. Max leaned in, no longer looking so patient.

"Look, Joseph... you could be out of here on your ASS... right now! I can't prove it but I KNOW you left the key in that machine! At the very least you were negligent and allowed an unauthorized youth into the chamber! You could be fired! Nein! Arrested!" Max threatened

"I'm ... I'm sorry sir, of course sir" Joseph would gulp, reluctantly collecting the new plans. At this Josh would zoom in on his camera phone, able to see just a sliver of light and some of the interaction as he could see a folder changing hands. Joseph would slide the folder into his briefcase, tucking it in front of a few other file folders.

"Make sure this is priority one" Dr. Max reiterated, "if not now, first thing in the morning, okay? Now get out of here... jetzt!"

Josh would back away, realizing he didn't have much time. He had to see what was in those files. He began to take off the other way down the hall while the 2 men were still engaged in the end of their conversation.

With enough time passing, the door would creak open and Joseph would come out, looking tired both mentally and physically, several things rushing through his head. He'd head in Josh's direction, unaware that anyone else was there at this hour, the hallway lights being on half brightness at best.

"It's now or never, Josh...." the determined young man would think to himself as the two were crossing paths.

The quick thinking but slow footed Josh would violently jerk sideways, slamming into the older gentleman and knocking him and his belongings onto the floor, paperwork flying out, both from Josh's case (which he had packed with some fake notes) and Joseph's. Josh would have maybe seconds to seize up the file folder labeled "Project Delta" -- it wasn't the 2.0 one so maybe Joseph wouldn't notice anything. Indeed at least for the moment, the man had his gaze turned and so Josh would reach for it and slide it carefully into his attaché case before apologizing profusely to the elder doctor.

"Oh no! Oh my, I'm SO sorry!" Josh would utter, still trying to stay as quiet as possible while he helped Joseph up, "I am sorry... I'm in such a hurry ... I was grabbing some things from my office and ..."

"Who ... who are you?" Joseph would ask angrily

"Again, I'm so sorry! I'm Justin!" Josh would lie, flashing his name badge which bore the name Justin Johnson, "I'm an intern and I was just trying to make a REALLY good first impression on the team, I told them I'd have a presentation ready tomorrow and ugh, it's a whole thing ... no excuse to knock you over, again I am SO sorry"

Joseph would groan, normally more irrate and wanting to deal with this, but the fact that Max's office was still nearby was quite frankly giving him the creeps and he had wanted this nightmarish night to end as soon as possible. He simply nodded in a gesture that he forgave Josh and continued on his way. Josh would bow gracefully and offer a departing smile as he also headed down the stairwell.

Perhaps if Josh had lingered just a second longer however, he may have noticed a single door opening on his way out. It was the door belonging to one Dr. Maximillian Mumford.

"I'd know that young man anywhere..." the bitter doctor would mutter, "that's the boy ... that's the crazy whackjob with the camera ..."

He'd groan as his mind analyzed the facts. What did he know? He knew the boy had been there, clearly posing as an intern (as if he could EVER be Enormo material! Hah!) He also knew the boy was a wannabe journalist with his camera phone and while not a genius, certainly not a pushover. There was no doubt in the Doctor's mind that Josh now knew SOMETHING.

Max would tsk as he sat in his chair and hastily logged onto his computer, "Fool me once, shame on me ... fool me twice ... time to die!"

Leah would clap and giggle upon watching new friend Chrissy complete a backflip trick off a bench in the central plaza of campus.

"Didn't I tell you, girl is good!" Lexi would clap a bit as well

"Awwww, well I've been cheerleading since I was in diapers so ..." Chrissy would shrug, an air of confidence about her as she wore her navy green hoodie and jean skirt. She seemed rather fond of skirts as no matter what the weather was she'd be wearing one. This day had been a particularly brisk September afternoon but still the perky blonde would dress in a mix of summer and autumn wear

"Not sure I'd wanna see a cheerleader in diapers..." Leah would joke

"Oh you know what I mean" Chrissy would giggle a bit, "So, we'll see you at the meeting later, Lexi?"

"For sure ... 7 o clock, right?" Lexi would nod in anticipation, "Again I REALLY appreciate you getting me in ... should I like ... have anything special prepared or...?"

"No, I mean just bring yourself" Chrissy would nod, stating the obvious, "maybe some pom poms if you wanna show us a quick cheer but I've already talked to the team and we all agree you're in, this is more of a formality"

"Again, I can't thank you enough" Lexi would blush, giving her friend a hug as she'd have to depart soon.

"No worries, Lex ... I gotta head off to work in a few but was nice meeting you Leah" she'd add in a friendly voice as she slowly took off. Even after her departure, Lexi's face would remain dumbfounded and feature a smile of sorts. Leah knew this look all too well.

"Uh... Lex?" Leah would joke, briefly swiping her hand in front of her best friends eyes. "Earth to Lex?"

Lexi would widen those eyes for a second and nod, "Huh? Yeah I'm here"

"Yeah you're here alright..." Leah would roll her eyes, turning to the side to collect her backpack and other things that she had set down for a moment, "you're on the beach with Chrissy right now, that's where you are..."

"What? No..." the defensive Lexi would retort, becoming a bit flummoxed at the thought

"Ohhhh yeah, I know that look in your eyes ... you LIIIIKE her" Leah would tease, bumping her friend lightly

"She's a very nice girl..." Lexi would agree, "But we're just friends, I just met her the other day and she was super nice to get me another tryout"

"And you're sure you're feeling better?" Leah would ask

"Y-Yeah..." Lexi would nod although she wouldn't seem super confident about it. She had had a couple of brief bouts with some vertigo feelings and wooziness but for the most part, her health and more importantly her size had been stable the last day or so.

All of her natural positivity could only push her so far and while she was excited to put the ordeal behind her, a lot of things still didn't seem right. At times it was almost as if she was fighting her body. She felt extra sensitive to any kind of wind or electrical currents and ... if she didn't know any better, the birds in the sky looked super messed up.

Of course, those weren't any birds, and a closer look may have triggered some trauma for the bubbly Alexis Cole, as these airborne creatures were not avarian but rather mechanical, bearing the same dreaded insignia as the hazmat suits from the previous night.

Meanwhile, Josh was studying the notes on Project Delta, trying to make heads or tails of the thing. It touted a way to spontaneously change size of any object within a certain parameter. Further pages would show metal cubes that could change in size from 1 inch to 10 feet in width with a complicated quadratic formula showing the rate of size increase and decrease.

Further turning the pages would reveal even more grids showing objects changing in size, denoted by outlines like an algebra graph problem. Most of the terminology was careful to use the word OBJECT. It never used the word PERSON or HUMAN. However as Josh got further in the research study, that's when he saw it.

HUMAN IMPLICATIONS AND POTENTIAL TRIALS.

"Human trials are still months or maybe years away. The hope would be to have the Project at full capacity within 18-36 months, producing the world's first fully modifiable soldiers. These soldiers could shrink and grow to fit any situation and the size alteration could be controlled via remote inside their gear. The subject could possibly control their own size alteration due to the enhanced electrical polarity they would be endowed with but this is not something that would occur simply. A remote or some kind of triggering device would likely need to be used until such time as a human could become sentient over their own size"

Josh read this over with much fascination. This was some sci-fi level shit right here ...

In fact, Josh was so fasincated, he didn't notice his phone blinking red from underneath, some kind of modified device seemingly integrated inside. He just knew one thing.

"I need to find Lexi"

------

"Hey, have you guys seen Lexi?" Chrissy would ask a group of about 6 girls while they waited in a small auditorium on the outskirts of the campus. Most would simply shake their head, some distracted on their phones, although one in particular seemed strangely livid. Her name was Gloria and she'd approach Chrissy with a bit more aggression.

"I still don't see what the big deal is about this girl or why you want her here" Gloria would sneer.

Gloria was certainly an imposing figure, the tallest of the cheerleaders and perhaps the strongest and most athletic. She stood at 5'11, a good 5 inches taller than her blonde cohort, had an olive compexion, dark brown eyes and painted green nails.

"Lex is a nice girl and ..."

"And what? She's a nice girl .. okay? She was so nice she couldn't even be bothered to show up" Gloria scoffed, "and now we just put everything on hold to wait for her? Again? I mean don't get me wrong, I'm sure she's FINE but ... why are you so protective of her?"

"I'm not being protective, I just .. I don't know, I liked something about what she showed us the other day" Chrissy shrugged, trying desperately to defuse the deterioriating situation.

Gloria sighed, "she didn't seem so special to me ... seemed a bit show-boaty to be honest, and that smile? I mean, nobody's THAT happy"

"So what if she is?" Chrissy giggled, "she wants to be a CHEER leader... it's okay to be cheery"

"No, I'm not buying it" Gloria tsked, chewing carelessly on a piece of gum which she'd tease and snap with her tongue, "Nobody's that happy... now we can get started and if she shows up tonight we'll see what happens, okay?"

Chrissy would sigh, "Okay..."

-----

Lexi would anxiously check her watch as her and Josh were at the library now, Josh having tracked her down and insisting he had something urgent to show the young brunette. While Lexi knew she kind of owed Josh one, she was also attentive of the time as 7 pm fast approached. She had her pom poms ready to go and was basically going to zip over to cheer practice but what Josh was saying had been admittedly interesting.

"So ... this is the project" Josh would explain, laying out a simplified version he had typed up himself, "basically they're trying to make Enormites but on steroids... perfectly modifiable objects that can grow or shrink... the science involves molecular compression and electrical manipulation... basically the majority of matter can be broken into various electrical bonds and ..."

"Josh...?" Lexi would sigh, again, looking at her watch, "It's not that I don't care ... I do ... but ... I need to get going"

"Just a few more minutes" Josh would urge, "I'm really ... I'm worried"

"Why are you worried?" Lexi would ask, her eyes occasionally fluttering to the window now where a few more "white birds" seemed be gathering. If she listened closely she could hear faint screams of students.

"I'm worried something happened to you in that lab and you're not telling anyone because you're scared" Josh would nod, unintentionally reaching his hand out as if to comfort Lexi but it had just the opposite effect as she withdrew her hand. "S-Sorry .. but for real ... you could be in real ..."

SMASH!!

Lexi's heartrate instantly accelerated as a window at the library was shattered and in came one of the drones. The Enormo drones no less, giving her nightmares of her time in that containment chamber when she had been shrunk and basically experimented on. It was then she put it together, at least in part. She WAS the object Josh was talking about. Enormo was trying to create size modifiable objects and that was her. She was LITERALLY Experiment 287. That's why they tried to put her in a box. That's why they wanted to likely study her, experiment on her. She was an OBJECT. At this thought, she grew very very angry.

"We've gotta get out of here!" Josh would shout, collecting up his thing and taking Lexi's hand, dragging her out the back door of the library, but they could both hear whirring helicopter blades from the other side of the door. The drones had all exits covered.

"Josh" Lexi would shake her head, slowly releasing her hand from Josh's. "we can't run ... I mean, we can try but ..."

Without another word, Lexi would kick down the door. One of the overzealous drones would be hit by the door, sending it sparking and careening into a nearby bush. The remaining 2 would stay fixated on the pair of students although it didn't seem to be Lexi they were focusing on.

"Joshua James" one of the drones said in a very robotic, almost "Stormtrooper" like voice, "You are coming with us"

At this Lexi would look over in shock. SHE was the one who had inadvertedly broken into the lab. She was the one who had basically stolen their technology by BECOMING it. Why were they after HIM? She quickly realized why, by mere fact that he possessed so much knowledge about all this.

"Josh, what the hell did you do?" the panicked Lexi asked as the 2 ran from the descending drones.

"Huh? Um... I didn't do anything" Josh lied as they dipped down a corner. They lost the pursuing drones, but yet more seemed to appear from behind a rooftop, always one step ahead.

"Yeah? Then why do THOSE things know your name?" Lexi asked as they continued running. "Why are they chasing us? Why are you running from them? Okay dumb question, you're running the same reason everyone else is..."

And that was a keen observation. Even though the drones were seeking Josh specifically the sight of them on a college campus raised very real concerns and most people were ducking into buildings or trying their best to stay out of the way as the drones seemed to beeline towards Josh and Lexi.

"Son of a ..." Josh would snap, looking at the back of his phone and finally noticing the blinking red beacon.

"What?" Lexi would ask

"I was right the whole time, they DID install a tracker on here..." Josh shook his head to this.

Back at the Enormo labs, the evil Doctor would sneer, seeing all of this play out through the various cameras on the drones.

"I've got you now, you STUPID boy!" Max would chuckle

Below the grid of cameras, Max could see his relative location showing up as a dot which moved every time he did. As a bonus, he also saw the foolish girl he was SURE to be part of the problem, but he would deal with her later. He wanted to make sure to put out the problem of the boy who knew too much first.

"Well, while you figure out what to do about that!" Lexi would sigh, picking up a wayward rock and tossing it at a drone causing it to spark and explode, "let's ..."

She'd quickly look over and see Josh had already broken his phone in half, thereby severing the GPS device.

"...didn't you need your phone?" Lexi asked, finding his solution a bit drastic, albeit understandable.

"I've got like 5 of them" he shrugs

"Well that won't stop them, let's go!" Lexi shook her head, this time taking HIS hand and leading him towards an abandoned set of buildings in the proximity. She had to get them away from the public and figure something out. They had about 6 of them on their tail but at least with the GPS no longer in play, maybe they could find a way to lose them.

"You aren't going to get away from me that easily!" Max would chuckle, hitting a button to accelerate the drones towards the two of them.

"You have been warned..." the drone would robotically state, hovering close enough to Josh to deliver a brief electrical shock, akin to that on a tazer. Josh would fall to his knees, his vision getting blurry.

"Josh!" Lexi would cry out, before glaring at the drones, a bit of an electrical spark emitting form her fingertips. Josh would briefly notice this but wrote it off as a result of seeing sparks from his own endured shock.

"Hey, losers! Follow me!" Lexi would taunt, running away from the robots to try to draw them off her fallen friend but since they were merely machines, they were unaffected by her taunts and would instead triangulate on Josh's location, determined to bring him in for detainment or worse.

"Okay ... then let's do it this way..." Lexi would sneer, doing a somersault and backflip over Josh and delivering a well placed karate chop on top of one of the drones, just between the propeller blades so she wouldn't incur pain but she still struck it pretty well.

Max watched in shock as one of the camera screens turned to static.

"WHAT?! What is it that's now happening?!" the angry Doctor would state.

At this, the other 3 robots would turn towards Lexi. They now perceived her as a threat, which is what she wanted. What the rest of her plan was remained to be seen. She'd quickly dash off, now drawing them away so Josh could at least recover.

"Lexi, don't ..." he'd whimper before falling to his knees, trying to get up, but his body felt woozier and woozier with every attempt.

Furious, Dr. Max would reach into his drawer and hastily hook up a microphone to his computer setup, comandeering one of the drones manually, including the voice unit.

"You stupid girl, I remember you!" the voice of the doctor would chirp.

"And I remember you, Mad Max!" Lexi would answer defiantly punching the human piloted drone in its front end, disabling another camera and its flight navigation, it would flutter to the ground useless now, leaving only 2 more.

As Max watched another one of his eyes in the sky flicker out, he would switch to Drone 2 to continue the pursuit, watching Lexi run towards a building whos doors would be locked.

"You're mine, fraulein!" the angry doctor would announce, the blades spinning faster as the drone came down. Lexi backed away as far as she could but the robotic drone was descending purposely slow to build the drama, the propeller blades basically nearing the neckline of her shirt as it inched inwards She breathed quickly before finally sighing.

"Fuck it" she uttered, closing her eyes and focusing hard, shrinking out of her clothes and out of view.

"WHAT IN THE?!" Max would shout, the 2 robots just scanning the area confused.

They would both eventually hover down towards the pile of Lexi's clothes, unaware that Lexi's shrunken body had climbed out and was precariously dangling off the nearby stairs, she'd land on the grass with a soft thud, too soft to be heard by the searching robots as they combed through her clothes. As she ran through the fields of grass, she'd snag a blade of it and briefly cover herself as if Eve from the old Bible story. Finally she'd double back once she felt a bit more confident. She'd have to time this just right to not only disable the bot but also regain the clothes ... she didn't want that old perv spying on her, after all.

While the 2 robots shone spotlights on the fallen clothes of Alexis Cole, the real girl, all 3 inches of her ran her way back through a dense field of tree like grass before finally willing herself to grow again, the blade of grass now serving useless as a form of cover but she was quick enough to get back towards the predatory robots and reshrink herself in time to get back into her clothes, surveying the situation briefly as she covered herself with a sock.

"I've gotcha!" Max would sneer, seeing her tiny and afraid body shivering behind the sock, sending a robot in for the kill but Lexi had other plans.

"Yeah that's right..." Lexi would whisper to herself, letting the distance between them grow smaller, "keep coming"

At the crucial moment of would be collision, Lexi would drop the sock like a matador dropping a towel to distract a bull and after doing so, she'd leap up onto the top of the drone, having to grab herself up as she was starting to slip.

"C-Can I get smaller?" Lexi asked herself, remembering that she HAD before but it had been just a chance thing. This time she would have to trigger it. This time, there was no such time and so she would have to trust in her instincts, running towards one of the blades of the drone as it spun at high speed. It surely looked like a suicide attempt except she had a plan. She'd duck underneath the blade with the most precise of timing and shrink herself further, slipping briefly into the innards of the drone, much to Max's confusion. It was almost as if he had never considered this possibility.

"What?!" Max would snap, now off the microphone for the moment, "I had never considered this possibility!"

Unbeknownst to him, a very confused and concerned Dr. Hoffnung glanced into the office only briefly to see his boss getting so flustered and upset. He didn't know all the details but he knew it was nothing good, but however decided to just walk away for now.

"I don't exactly know machines..." Lexi would say to herself, standing atop wiring and chips that now dwarfed her in size, "but I'm guessing some of these things are important..." the fast talking Lexi would assert as she pulled out some of the cables and as a result, watched her mechanical surroundings begin to spark and collapse on themselves.

Wasting no time, she'd leap from the exploding drone and attempt to grow herself back, although only reaching about half size, but burrowing into some of her clothes to at least offer coverage.

"Uggh..." she'd groan, probably looking ridiculous to anyone who passed by. Most people wouldn't consider the fact that she had been only a few feet tall and would figure she was simply crouching or in a stumbled over position, creating the illusion of shortness.

Unfortunately what wasn't an illusion was the looking sight of the final drone, and Max's last chance to capture Lexi.

"You ... are mein!!" the evil Dr. Max would assert

"Uh... so not my type" Lexi would chuckle, struggling to her feet to run in the oversized clothes before slowly growing her body back into them, but of course it wasn't perfect, certain parts of her wardrobe were now either stretched or not in the right places and that effected her running speed drastically.

Even worse, the stress, size change and the continued sparking on her hands and feet were weakening her visibly and she'd find herself soon face down in the grass after tripping one last time, the drone hovering over her

"Surrender now, you foolish girl!" Max would announce, "if what has happened to you is what I think has happened, it will take only a single shock from this drone to reduce you to an atom ... at which point it'll be easier than ever to take you back to my lab ... dissect you and figure out what makes you tick ... YOU'RE MINE!! I'VE WON!! GIVE UP NOW!!"

Lexi was struggling to get to her feet, unsure of what to do. Shrink? Stay in place? She was in trouble now but would never admit it of course. She winced and waited for the inevitable pain that would likely occur from the electric shock before hearing a slam instead.

She'd turn around confused, her clothes still disheveled as she rolled onto her side to see the mangled and ruined drone on the grass. She'd scoot away just in case it tried anything but it did appear to be down for the count. To her surprise, she'd see Josh, still not looking great but he had konked the final robotic drone out with his backpack and looked at Lexi, again worried.

"Josh..." she'd gasp, before giving him a hug, which only shocked them both a bit, although luckily Lexi was able to hold her shrinking powers back. "Ow ... are you okay?"

"Um... maybe?" Josh would groan, still holding his head, "Lexi what was that thing talking about ... about the electric shock and the ..."

"I ... I don't know...." Lexi would frown, looking really withdrawn now, "That guy is a lunatic, yknow... I have no idea what he meant"

"Lex... I think you do" Josh frowned, "If something's happened, you can tell me..."

"N-No offense Josh..." Lexi sputtered, "but I'm still getting to know you and ... I ... ugh I'm late for cheerleading again ... I ... I don't even think I'm going to go ..."

"Oh cmon, you gotta go" Josh would whimper, again struggling to stand.

"No ... I ... no ... not exactly feeling cheery now, plus you need me" Lexi would concede, offering a hand to keep her friend standing upright. She'd hold him close to help him walk as they walked towards the health center, completely bypassing the auditorium in the process. After some time, Josh would wake up on a nurses bed, feeling a bit better but noticing a sticky note on his chest. He'd peel it off and read a short note,

"Josh, thank you truly for your help, you're a good friend"

below that would appear a heart and Lexi's signature. Josh would sigh, grateful for the note but still worried as he just lay there and continued to rest.

----

"So... you think a human got into the machine?" Trevor would ask his boss worriedly later that night

"I'm not thinking, I'm knowing..." Max would say, feigning concern, "Oh you were right Dr... this is truly terrible ... we need to find this person ... this ... Alexis, I think her name is ... and we need to ... we need to make this right"

Trevor would pause and look at his boss for a moment, not at all positive that the words were sincere but he would also nod in agreement.

----

Finally, Lexi would be able to relax, concluding a first week of college that involved missing out on cheer team, learning how to shrink, albeit not very well. For the moment, she could focus on something more normal, like talking to her new friend Chrissy on the phone

"I'm so sorry again about the cheer thing, I know you stuck your neck out for me and I really do appreciate it but ... I just don't think it's going to fit into my semester schedule right now ... maybe next semester..."

"Well I'll admit, I was more than a bit bummed to not see you there..." Chrissy would nod, "but I may have another offer for you ..."

"Oh?"

"How'd you like a job?" Chrissy giggled

"You mean it?"

"Girl quit at the cookie shop I work at on campus... I could recommend you ..." Chrissy said in a sing songing voice

"Yknow, I'm beginning to get a bit worried you don't think I can do anything on my own ... first you clothe me, now you're getting me a job?" Lexi joked

"So is that a no?" Chrissy asked

"Oh no, totally call them" Lexi would giggle

"Okay, sounds like a plan!" Chrissy chuckled, "I'll let you know how it goes"

"Lexi! You have mail!" Lexi would hear her mom say from downstairs.

"Okay mom, hold on a moment" Lexi would say, tucking her phone down for just a bit before bidding adieu to Chrissy.

With that, the still exhausted Lexi would head down the stairs and accept the envelope. It appeared to be a rather official looking thing, with the address typed up in blue.

"It's from Enormo Enterprises" Mrs. Cole would say, giving Lexi good reason to pause, "didn't you go on some tour there the other day?"

"Ummm... yeah!" Lexi nodded, hastily running back upstairs, "Must be a ... generic thank you thing!"

"Okay ... well, don't be too long, dinner will be ready soon"

"Okay mom!"

Lexi would creep back into her room, the envelope in her nervous hands as she went to open it, but her sight was momenrarily distracted by another sight. It was the drawing she had snatched from Leah's car not even a couple days prior. The playful sketch depicting "the shrinking girls" with Lexi wearing purple and gold. To this she would smile, taking the picture and pinning it up on her corkboard. She'd then turn to more serious matters, opening the letter and seeing official business letterhead from Enormo Enterprises. The letter read:

"Ms. Alexis Cole,

I understand completely why you wouldn't want to hear from this company. Truth be told, I don't know why I'm
doing what I'm doing sometimes. You don't know me, but I'm one of our scientists here, named Hope. I'd love to
meet you sometime and see if I can offer you any assistance for things that may or may not have transpired in your
life as a result of the reckless actions of this company.

I understand this may come off as a demand but I assure you that it's not. I don't expect to hear back from you but
if you're ever interested, I've included a confidential phone number you can call. At the very least, I can try to
help you understand what may have happened to you. I know things may feel bleak now, but everybody needs a little Hope.

Signed,
Hope "



Lexi's eyes looked to the letter, her mind and heart processing its words but she put her head down, eyeing the wastebasket by her bed instead. Determined to send it there to rot, she'd suddenly change her mind and slip it into a drawer. She'd shake her head in wonderment at her own decision but offer the identical justification that the note had provided.

Everybody needs a little hope.