Chapter 1: Origins

At a mall in Arizona on a Saturday afternoon, in the stage area where a presentation was to be held, a man in his late 30's and a 15-year-old girl stood behind a curtain. The two performers were a Hispanic man named Mike Roman, a.k.a. Micromage, and the young woman was Moxie Miller, a.k.a. Vector Girl. Mike was wearing a futuristic spandex uniform that accentuated his muscular physique, while Moxie was wearing a mini-skirt with mid calf boots, and a tank top and gloves. Both of them wore a belt and a wristband with a built-in communication console that actually worked, so they could communicate with each other as their characters do in the video game.

The announcer stepped up to the microphone: "And now for the main event you have all been waiting for, your favorite video game characters come to life, give it up for Micromage and Vector Girl!"

The curtain began to rise, and the crowd of kids went wild. Two little boys in the front of the crowd asked Mike a question.

"Micromage!" said the first boy, "Can you really shrink?"

"No," Mike replied, "that only happens in the video game!"

"What a rip-off!" said the boy.

"I bet Vector Girl can't even grow, either!" said the second young boy.

There were two bins in front of Micromage, one with Micromage and Vector-Girl video game cartridges, and the other with Micromage and Vector-Girl comic books. Mike and Moxie began tossing them to people in the crowd. The young people went wild, each of them clamoring for a prize.

"And don't forget," said Mike, "the next installment of the Micromage and Vector-Girl videogame comes out next month!" After all the games and comic books were given out, the crowd dispersed.

A teenage boy in the crowd approached Moxie. "Are you doing anything tonight, Vector Girl?"

"We're going out of state in a couple of days, so I can't really get involved with anyone while I'm on the road," Moxie replied. "Sorry!"

About an hour went by as Mike and Moxie answered questions from the few remaining people who were left after the crowd had diminished. Eventually, the crowd dispersed completely.

"I only got hit on once today, do you think I'm losing my touch?" Moxie asked.

"No, there'll be others. But I think you should consider going out with one of those boys one of these days. You don't really have much of a social life like other girls your age."

“No, we're traveling to malls all across the country,” Moxie replied. “I'm not really in a position to have any kind of a real relationship."

A middle aged woman approached Mike. “Is your name Mike Roman?” the woman asked.

“Yes, it is,” Mike replied.

“I have a fantastic idea,” said the woman, “the name Mike Roman sounds a lot like Microman, you should use that as the name of your character.”

“There’s a problem with that,” said Mike, “Microman was trademarked when I created the Micromage and Vector Girl video game, that’s how I came up with the name Micromage, because it wasn’t taken.”

“Well,” the woman replied, “if you try to use the name Microman, I’ll sue you because it was my idea.”

Mike pulled out a business card and handed it to the woman. “This is my lawyer’s business card, contact him if you have any questions. You’re the third person to approach me with this concept this year alone.” The woman took the card and walked away.

Mike and Moxie exited the mall and entered the parking lot looking for their car, a convertible known as the Micromobile.

Mike and Moxie got into the Micromobile, and Mike drove them back to their hotel. Mike parked, and they got out and entered their hotel room. Once inside the hotel room, Mike got on the hotel room phone and called room service, and Moxie used the remote control to turn on the television.

Mike was on the phone talking to room service: "Yes, I'd like a pound of boneless, skinless chicken breast, preferably baked, half an avocado, and an order of brown rice, and broccoli." Mike turned his head to look at Moxie. "What would you like, Moxie?”

"A protein style cheeseburger and a baked potato," Moxie replied. "And some broccoli."

Mike told them what Moxie wanted, and hung up.

A newscaster on the news on television was saying, "--and a scientist who worked at the research facility said they have a neutrino dissimilator that could miniaturize people or objects, and claims he was told to keep it a secret. Whether or not these claims are true remains a mystery, but a spokesman for the facility claims there are no neutrino dissimilation experiments currently being conducted at the facility."

"Mike, we need to go check that place out! It's in this area!"

"Why should we go there?" Mike asked.

"Because!" Moxie replied, "If we could sneak in, we could get some pictures of you near actual miniaturization technology! It would give us street cred!"

"But we could get busted by the police if we get caught!" said Mike.

"You're the one who always complains that the kids are disappointed that we don't actually have the powers of our characters! This is our chance for you to acquire actual shrinking abilities!”

"If you buy a map of this area, I'll drive us over there. This is your project, Moxie.”

Moxie pulled out a map book and held it up in the air. “I already have a Thomas guide for southern Arizona!"

"Okay," said Mike, "we'll go there after we finish eating."

Fifteen minutes after they finished eating, they were down the street from the research facility. Mike drove past it, then parked down the block and pondered their next move. They exited the Micromobile, and Moxie had a pair of wire-cutters, and gave them to Mike. He cut through the chain-link fence.

They crawled through the hole Mike made in the fence, and hid behind a dumpster.

"You stay here," said Mike, "I’m going to go take a look."

Mike disappeared inside the facility. Moxie waited a few minutes, then followed after him. Two guards emerged from a different door than the one Mike had gone through, and started smoking cigarettes, but the door they were guarding was open. Moxie found a lug nut that was on the ground, and threw it to the other side of the yard, and the guards went after the sound. Moxie proceeded inside without being spotted.

Moxie approached a computer terminal. Within less than a minute, she found the homepage that has a link to the page with a map of the complex. Finding her destination, she snuck off in that direction.

Meanwhile, Mike had found the neutrino dissimilation chamber. After studying the control panel for several minutes, he figured out how to work it. Moxie showed up with her camera.

"Mike, why don't you step inside for a photo?" Moxie asked.

Mike stepped inside, and Moxie pushed the button that sealed the chamber door, and Mike was trapped inside. He beat on the titanium door hatch, but to no avail. Mike activated the communication device on his wristband to talk to Moxie.

"Why did you shut the door hatch, Moxie?” Mike asked over his wrist radio.

"Because I want to get a picture of you shrunk, and I knew you wouldn't go for it. Sorry, Mike!"

Moxie studied the control console and figured out how to work it quicker than Mike did. Within seconds, she activated the neutrino dissimilator cannon that was aimed downward at the heart of the chamber where Mike was trapped. In an instant, Mike was shrunk down to about one inch tall. Moxie jumped up and down in excitement and pushed the button that opened the door hatch. She scooped Mike up in her hand.

"We did it, Mike!" said Moxie. “Now you're really Micromage! Let me get a picture of you now!"

In the control room, however, a guard didn’t appear to be as thrilled as Moxie. He picked up a phone.

"Let me speak with the director. We have a power drain in the neutrino dissimilation chamber. We have intruders, I have them on camera now!"

Five armed guards rushed into the room Moxie was in. She was surrounded, and brought to the room of the director of the facility. Carrying Mike in her hand, she sat down as she was asked to by the director of the facility.

"I'm Duke Hollister, the director of this research facility. What you have done is inexcusable! The two of you broke in here and utilized our neutrino dissimilation technology without permission."

"Sorry!" said Moxie.

"There's no need to be sorry, it's too late for that. Perhaps the three of us can work together for our mutual benefit."

"How?" Moxie asked.

"I recognize you and your miniaturized partner as Micromage and Vector Girl. You are celebrities. If we allow you to use our technology, all we ask in return is that you advertise our company. We are going public in a few weeks, and we need all of the publicity we can get."

"I'm willing to do it," said Mike.

"Me too!" said Moxie.

"I will have you re-enlarged immediately, Mr. Roman!" said Duke Hollister.

Mike was carried to the chamber where he had been miniaturized, and the guards reversed the process. When Mike emerged from the chamber at normal size, the director handed him a belt with sophisticated electronics equipment built into it. Mike put the belt on and fastened it.

"That has both a neutrino dissimilator to shrink you down to size, and a neutrino assimilator to re-enlarge you back to normal size." Duke Hollister handed Mike a device built into a strap. "You attach that control gauntlet to your wrist, and it will control the device built into the belt. You don't need to enter the neutrino dissimilation chamber to shrink. That was just a prototype we built before we developed this more sophisticated design. On your belt is a neutrino dissimilation device that will shrink you down to any target size you punch into the sizing scope built into your wristband."

As Mike put the wristband on, the director continued: "You will be given an electronic tablet that explains your powers and the technology. Understand?"

"Understood!" Mike responded.

"If you are ever in somebody's stomach," the director continued, "you will not be able to re-enlarge. This is for the protection of anyone who swallows you. I want our company to benefit from the publicity of your new shrinking ability, but I don't want anyone getting injured with our technology. I know that places you in potential danger, but I have no choice."

“I understand!" Mike replied.

“There is a way for you to escape if you do get swallowed by someone, the information is in the electronic tablet.”

Duke Hollister pulled out an I.D. card from a drawer in the desk he sat at. It was attached to a lanyard. He got up, and went to a safe in the back of the office, and slid the card through the scanner, which opened the safe. Duke pulled out another belt and control gauntlet, but this set matched the colors of Moxie's uniform.

"And this is for Moxie,” said Duke, as he handed the belt and control gauntlet to Moxie. She took them from him and tried them on.

"You've got something for me? Are you serious?" Moxie asked, as she took them from him and tried them on.

"We have dimensional technology that allows someone to grow, and their strength increases in proportion to their size," said Duke. “Of course, the theory is more advanced than the theory utilized in your video game."

"Yeah?" Mike asked. "Was I on the right track?"

"Your theory involved dark matter and dark energy, and our version opens a tear in the center of each quark, gluon and electron composing the sub-atomic particles of Moxie’s body."

"That's intense!" said Moxie. “Is it safe?"

"Yes!" Duke replied. "Partially phased matter from another space-time continuum that exists on a larger scale is forced through the center of those elementary particles, causing them to increase in size, weight, volume and mass."

"How is this possible without violating the square-cube law?" Mike asked. "Couldn't she be crushed by her increased body weight?"

"Since the excess matter is partially phased," said Duke, "we control what aspects of it affect Moxie’s body. We can increase her size, mass and strength without increasing her weight, thereby circumventing the square-cube law." Duke Hollister handed an electronic tablet to Mike. "The details of the theory are all there in black and white, in case you want to review them later. The technology controlling your shrinking and re-enlarging abilities are in there, too."

"Thanks!" said Mike, and he handed the tablet to Moxie.

"Would you mind telling me where all this technology came from?" Mike asked. "And who you people are? This stuff is thousands of years removed from anything our government is currently capable of!"

"I think I owe you that much," Duke replied. "I am part of a team from twenty-thousand years in your future. We were actually counting on the two of you breaking in here tonight. The worker who reported us to the news was following my orders.”

"Oh, really?" Mike responded. "What brings you here? Is the world in danger or something?"

"Something like that," Duke replied. My government doesn't choose to get involved in matters pertaining to the distant past. There have been two or three wars between your time and mine where information detailing the 21st century was largely erased due to electromagnetic pulse."

"What kind of a threat are we facing?" Mike asked.

"A man from my century has traveled back to your time, to exploit it."

"What does he look like?" Mike asked. "What name does he go by?"

"From checking your near future, we know he goes by the name of Amnesio, master of mind control. He has three teenage nieces he travels around with, about the same age as Vector Girl. We developed this research facility because we knew you would be in town at this time, so we could give you the technology you'll need to protect yourselves from him."

"How dangerous is Amnesio?" Moxie asked.

"He's going to try to kill you. Our goal is to level the playing field by giving you these abilities!"

"Why won't your government try to stop Amnesio?" Mike asked. "They could travel back in time and apprehend him!"

"Our government won't finance a mission through time to deal with anything from before about five thousand A.D."

"Why not?" Mike asked.

"According to time travel physics as we understand them in our century, it is impossible to alter the past. My government feels that Amnesio poses no threat to our livelihood, so they won't authorize a mission into the past to stop him."

"So who do you represent?" Mike asked. "Why have you come back to help us?"

"We are part of a private non-profit organization that relies on donations," Duke replied. "I am a volunteer."

"That's so typical!" Mike replied. "People will never change! Governments are all the same! Ran by bureaucrats who don't care about anything but money!"

"Mr. Hollister," Moxie asked, "will we be allowed to keep our powers after we defeat Amnesio?"

"Yes, absolutely!" Duke replied. "But that's only IF you defeat Amnesio! It's not a guarantee that you will! Let's go to a larger room so Moxie can try out her new power!"

Mike and Moxie followed Duke to a large warehouse that is at least a couple of stories tall.

"You should have enough room to grow here, Moxie. Use your gauntlet to program your target height. Program it to grow three times your current height!"

"Is there a time limit before I can return to normal size again?" Moxie asked.

"Unfortunately, yes!" Duke replied. It takes an incredible amount of power to enlarge you to giant size, so when you leave here, it takes time for your belt and gauntlet to re-charge. We have enough power here to return you to normal size without waiting the first time, though."

Moxie programmed her gauntlet as Duke suggested, and she started growing. She stopped growing at fifteen feet tall.

"This is incredible!" said Mike. "Your technology really works! Making someone shrink is one thing, but growing? It's beyond belief!"

"Moxie, would you like me to call you by your real name, or would you prefer Vector Girl?" Duke asked.

"You can call me Vector Girl, now!" Moxie replied.

"Vector Girl, pick up one of those barrels at the edge of the room!"

Moxie walked over and picked up one of the barrels, and held it at eye level.

"Now pick up another!" Duke commanded.

Moxie walked over and picked up another barrel, and started to juggle them.

"Those barrels weigh eighty pounds each!" said Duke. "Moxie, see how far you can throw them!"

Moxie threw the barrels at one of the walls of the warehouse, and they hit very hard and bounced off and hit the floor. One of the barrels rolled over by Mike's feet. Mike tried to lift it, and found it to be very heavy.

"You weren't lying about that thing weighing eighty pounds!" said Mike. "How strong does she get? Is there an upper limit?"

"The larger she grows, the stronger she gets!" said Duke. "We haven't tested the upper limits of her abilities yet, you might want to take her out to the desert and find out on your own."

"I want to get bigger!" said Moxie. “Is that okay, Mr. Hollister?"

"I'd prefer that you tested out your powers on your own time," Duke replied. "The larger you grow, the more power it takes to restore you to normal size."

"Do you want me to return to normal size right now?" Moxie asked.

"Yes," Duke replied, "we will use our technology here in the warehouse to do that."

Duke Hollister motioned to some of his men, and they got some devices attached to hoses and surrounded Moxie. There were three men, and each with a device. Duke activated a remote control device that he held in his hand, and the three hoses discharged a strange purple energy that engulfed Moxie, and brought her back down to normal size. Moxie ran up to Duke and Mike.

"That was so much fun! Mr. Hollister - -"

"Call me Duke!"

"Thanks, Duke!" said Moxie. "Do we have to keep our powers a secret?"

"Eventually, people are going to figure out you have these powers, but initially, I think you should keep them a secret until you're ready to reveal yourselves to the public!"

"What happens if I accidentally swallow Mike when he's shrunk, or a normal sized person when I'm giant-sized?" Moxie asked.

"What?" Mike asked.

"I mean, hypothetically?" said Moxie. “I'm not saying I would do that, but what if it did happen?"

If you do swallow Mike, don't leave him in your belly for too long, or he could suffocate. I would suggest using the neural stimulator built into your gauntlet to make yourself vomit, in case that happens. You also have fire suppression technology from our century built into your gauntlet. Every you need to know is in that electronic tablet I gave you.”

"Thanks, Duke!" said Moxie. "But what happens if I swallow someone when I'm giant sized? Like, if I'm three hundred feet tall?"

"If you have someone in your belly when you're giant-sized, when you return to normal size while they're in your gut, they will shrink proportionately."

"Proportionately?" Moxie asked. "So if they seem to be an inch tall to me because I'm hundreds of feet tall, when I return to normal size, they would end up at one inch tall for real?"

"Precisely!" said Duke.

"Moxie is very intelligent!" said Mike.

"One thing you don't need to worry about is for one of Vector Girl's victims to somehow gain her powers." said Duke.

"Why would we be worried that they could gain her powers?" Mike asked.

"The center of every quark, gluon, and electron of Moxie’s body has a dimensional lock that opens when she activates her growing power. When she swallows someone at giant size, they have a similar mechanism employed in the quarks, gluons and electrons of their body when Moxie returns to normal size."

"So it might be possible for them to grow like Moxie?”Mike asked.

"We specifically formulated Moxie’s Vector Girl abilities so a swallowed victim would shrink when Moxie returns to normal size, but they wouldn't have those dimensional locks composing the elementary particles of their bodies."

"How would we go about restoring them to normal size?" Mike asked.

"There are two ways," Duke replied, "You could bring them here to this facility, or you could use your neutrino assimilator to re-enlarge them one at a time."

"That sounds so cool!" said Moxie.

"One more thing for you to remember, Moxie, is that if you are ever in handcuffs or manacles of any kind, you can't try to re-enlarge yourself or you could get seriously injured."

"I won't forget, Duke!" said Moxie.

"One more thing, Moxie, your powers are on probationary period, you won’t be able to grow until we re-activate your powers when we feel you’ve earned it by proving that you’re mature enough to handle it. My men will show you to the front door." said Duke. "I have a lot of paper work to finish, if you don't mind."

"If we have any more questions, how do we get a hold of you?" Mike asked.

"Here is my business card," said Duke, handing one to Mike and a second card to Moxie.

"Thanks for all you've done for us, Duke!" said Mike.

Mike and Moxie exited the research facility. It was night time. They headed for the Micromobile, and Mike held the passenger door open for Moxie.

"Do you think we'll wake up tomorrow and this will all have been a dream?" Moxie asked.

"Don't talk to me until we get back to the hotel room," said Mike, "I think Duke and his men might be listening in on us."

Ten minutes later, Mike pulled into a parking space at the hotel parking lot. Mike and Moxie exited the Micromobile and headed into their hotel room. Once inside, Mike closed the door to the room.

"Don't ever try to talk me into doing anything that crazy again!" said Mike angrily. "I can't believe you sealed me inside that chamber!"

"I was just doing what was best for both of us, Mike... it's not like you were hurt or anything."

"That doesn't matter!" said Mike. "You completely did whatever you wanted to and used that neutrino dissimilator on me! You had no way of even knowing if I'd survive or not!"

"Okay, I'm sorry!" said Moxie. “I don't know why you're making such a big deal out of all of this!"

"I'm going to the store, stay here!" said Mike, and he left the hotel room.

Some time later, Mike pulled up in the Micromobile and parked, then headed to the hotel room carrying a large grocery bag. He entered the room and closed the door behind him. Mike pulled out bottles of beer and began dropping them into an ice chest that was already there in the room.

"What do you think you're doing?" Moxie asked. "You're a hero, and kids look up to you! You can't drink beer! I'm pouring this out!"

Moxie took the ice chest to the sink, and opened each bottle with her bottle opener that was on her keychain, and dumped each bottle down the sink.

"Now I'm going to the store, to get us some root beer!" said Moxie, and she went out the door.

While Moxie was gone, Mike decided to test out his new miniaturization technology. He activated the control gauntlet built into his wristband, and shrunk himself down to an inch tall. When Moxie got back with the root beer, Mike was nowhere to be seen.

"Mike?" Moxie asked. "Micromage, if you shrunk yourself, you need to let me know!”

Moxie hunted the hotel room, and when she pulled up a corner of the bed spread, she spotted him, and grabbed him.

"We have to be at another local mall here in Arizona tomorrow," said Moxie. “We don’t have time to test out your new ability.”

Moxie propped Mike up on her thigh, as she read through the technical manual given to Mike by Duke Hollister.

"It says here that the atoms of your body are partially phased," said Moxie. “Over 99 percent of the matter composing the elementary particles of your body are in another dimensional continuum."

"I'm curious as to how different their theory is compared to the one I came up with in my video game," said Mike.

"From what it says here," said Moxie. “A dimensional membrane keeps the matter in that other continuum separated from the matter over here in our own space/time continuum."

"Kind of like a cheese cloth separating the cheese curds from the whey when making cheese," said Mike. "That's how my character describes it in the video game. Does it say anything about the excess matter that is converted into neutrino particles and held suspended in some kind of force field in that other dimension?"

"Does your video game describe that happening like that?" Moxie asked. "It doesn't say anything about that in this technical manual."

"Use the business card Duke gave you to call him up and ask him personally," said Mike.

After Moxie called Duke on her cell phone and put it on speaker phone so Mike could hear, Moxie asked the question, and Duke replied, "That's one aspect of the neutrino dissimilation theory Mike got wrong. It would take the amount of power generated in one minute by an exploding medium-sized star to suspend the neutrinos that were subtracted from your body in a force field in another dimensional continuum for a period of one year. With our theory, he could stay shrunk for a year without using any additional wattage than what was used to shrink him in the first place."

"So what happens according to the theory you guys use in 20,000 A.D.?" Moxie asked.

"Once the excess matter is subtracted from Mike's body by the dimensional membrane, those neutrinos shoot off into that dimensional continuum, and are never recovered. During the neutrino assimilation process, neutrinos are subtracted from atoms in the air surrounding Mike and are transferred to his body, thereby re-enlarging him. The only time that wouldn't work is if he was in a vacuum, such as outer space, because there would be no surrounding atoms available to subtract from and transfer to his body."

"Anything else?" Moxie asked.

That’s all you really need to know about it,” said Duke. “I hope that explains it, Moxie, I need to get back to work."

"Thanks, Duke!" said Moxie, and she hung up the call.

"Well, I'm not planning on going into space any time soon," Mike replied, "so I guess I'll be okay. In the video game, the discarded neutrinos fly off into space, and during the assimilation process, other neutrinos from atoms in the air around the shrunken person are taken and re-assimilated into the miniaturized atoms, re-enlarging them. So at least I got that part right."

"Let me see about the assimilator function," said Moxie as she flipped through the technical manual.

"A lot of this stuff is really technical," said Moxie. “I doubt your theory is as complex as the stuff in this manual."

"It was never meant to be a hundred percent scientifically accurate," said Mike. "As long as I got the general idea correct, that's what counts."

The next day, Mike was at normal size and both he and Moxie were dressed up in their costumes as they pulled up in a parking space at another mall. Moxie waited in the car as Mike got out and headed in the direction of the mall. He turned around when he realized Moxie wasn't coming with him.

"What are you waiting for?" Mike asked.

"I'm waiting for you to open my door for me!" Moxie responded.

Mike walked over and opened her door for her. They walked together toward the mall.

"Are you going to shrink for the audience?" Moxie asked. "This is the first time you actually have shrinking powers!"

"I haven't made up my mind yet," Mike replied, "I still think it might be a good idea to keep my shrinking ability a secret. What do you think?"

"I don't think it matters," said Moxie. “You could always tell them it was special effects or something."

As they walked through the front doors of the mall, an older man in a business suit approached them.

"Hi, you must be Micromage and the lovely Vector Girl... I'm Randall Havenhurst, the manager of this mall. This is the first time we've had an appearance like this, and there's a huge crowd waiting! I was getting worried you wouldn't show up!"

"Moxie just takes a while to get ready." said Mike. Moxie scowled at Mike for that comment.

"Is there a reason you're meeting us here at the door, Mr. Havenhurst?" Mike asked.

"Yes, there is," Mr. Havenhurst replied, "we've had a threatening phone call this morning. I'm assuming it's just a hoax. I didn't want to evacuate on this big day!"

"If you're concerned about our safety, maybe we should leave and come back in a couple of months," Mike suggested, "We'll be back in this state at the end of Summer."

"I won't hear of it!" said Mr. Havenhurst. "My mall needs this kind of publicity! If you left, it would look like we couldn't deliver on our promises! Do you know how big Micromage and Vector-Girl are around here? There are throngs of kids lined up to get your autographs! We haven't had business like this since a pop star made an appearance in this town last year!"

"Mike," said Moxie, “don't be a chicken! It was probably a hoax or a prank call!"

"Yeah," Mike replied. "you're probably right."

Meanwhile, outside, three vans pull up and a group of ski-masked men holding machine guns jump out of the side doors and hustle toward the doors of the mall. An older man saw them.

"Hey," the old man said, "is this some kind of a show you're putting on?"

One of the gunmen shoves the butt of his weapon into the guy's head, and he fell over. The gang leader shouted to the half dozen other ski-masked men: "Move, move, move!"

Inside the mall, Mike and Moxie were in position and waiting for the curtain to rise when the bandits ran in with their machine guns. Nobody was shot, but there was a lot of noise and shouting, and some women screamed in terror. Mike jumped down from his platform and tried to disarm one of the suspects, but was knocked across the side of the head with the butt of a rifle and hit the floor. Mike was out cold!

Moxie nursed the wound on Mike's head by applying pressure to it, and listened to the demands of the gunmen.

"Okay," said the gang leader, "we made a phone call earlier to the director of this place, and we made a few demands!"

Moxie looked at Mr. Havenhurst, and scowled at him; she knew this was his fault.

"There's a vault," the gang leader continued, "that is one hundred feet below this mall! Inside are gold and silver bars! I want those bars delivered within two hours, or I'll handcuff all of you, and rig this bomb to go off after we leave!"

Mike woke up.

"Moxie?"

"Shhh!" said Moxie quietly as she placed her finger over her lips. "Be quiet!"

Two of the gunmen walked around with chains and handcuffs, and cuffed the people one by one to the furniture of this part of the mall. He handcuffed Moxie and Mike to each other, then attached a chain that connected them to a metal clothes rack. Once the criminal was out of earshot, Moxie whispered: "You can shrink and go find the vault!"

Mike adjusted his gauntlet, and activated the shrinking mechanism. He shrunk down to an inch tall, just as he had done the night before. The metal handcuff stayed normal size, and Mike was able to slip right through it. Moxie picked him up in the palm of her hand.

"Good luck!" said Moxie, and she set Mike on the floor.

Mike ran to an air vent that was nearby, and used a pocket knife he had on him to cut open a section he could climb through. Once inside the vent, he turned on the lighting system that was part of his costume that had at first been designed as a prop. Just then, one of the gunmen approached Moxie and asked: "What happened to the guy who was handcuffed to you?"

The masked gunman raised the machine gun and took aim at Moxie as she tried to think of an answer...

To Be Continued!

Chapter 2: Enter Amnesio

The gunman aimed the machine gun at Moxie as she tried to think of an excuse for Mike's disappearance.

"Am I talkin' to a brick wall? I said where's your partner?"

"There was nobody else here!" Moxie said defiantly.

"We handcuffed you two by two!" the man said. "Where's that friend of yours who tried to pick a beef with Shank?”

"How the heck should I know? I just look out for myself!"

The gunman flagged down the leader. "Vertigo! We've got a problem over here! One of the hostages escaped, and this little chick knows something about it!"

Vertigo, the leader, approached Moxie. “These machine guns are real, so I strongly suggest you cooperate!”

Moxie answered: "He used a neutrino dissimilator device attached to his belt to shrink down to an inch tall! Right now, he's in the ventilator shaft, trying to find that underground vault!"

Vertigo pulled out a walkie-talkie and said into it: "We've got a bogie in the ventilator shaft!"

Vertigo put the walkie-talkie away and pulled out a set of keys. "Un-cuff yourself and come with me!"

Meanwhile, Mike was at the edge of a vertical ventilation shaft. He found a hole he could hook a carabiner to, and used the coil of cable built into the back of his costume to lower himself down. Lights built into his costume illuminated the metal chasm below.

When he got to the bottom, he found the screen that circulated air to the underground vault the leader had spoke of.

Just then, Mike heard a crackle of static and then he heard Moxie’s voice on his wrist-radio.

"Mike! They've got me!"

"Moxie!” Mike responded, but her voice was replaced by the voice of the gangleader.

"I've got your little girlfriend! Now I want you to find the access elevator that leads to the vault!"

"I'll do whatever you ask!" Mike said into his wrist-radio. "What's in the vault that's so valuable?"

"You let me worry about that!" Vertigo answered.

When Mike cut through the ventilation screen, the lights built into his costume illuminated the interior of the vault.

On two sides of a pathway were stacks of gold and silver bars stacked from floor to ceiling. Mike jumped from his perch to the nearest gold bar. The door to an elevator was built into the wall nearest him. Since Mike was an inch tall, he was able to maneuver to the elevator control panel. Mike pushed the button, and the door opened. There were lights built into the ceiling of the elevator, so he shut off the lights in his suit to conserve his batteries.

Now Mike had the problem of reaching the interior control panel now that he was inside the elevator. He accomplished this by finding a bolt on the ground, and threw it toward the UP button. On the third attempt, Mike hit his target. When the doors started to slide shut, Mike raced out into the vault.

Mike keyed his wrist-radio: "Okay! I did my part! I sent up the elevator!"

Back on ground level, Vertigo heard Mike's transmission. His men had used a blowtorch to cut through the metal gate that had concealed the ground floor elevator door, but they had been unable to get it to work.

When the door opened, Vertigo smiled as three of his gunmen got in, and patted Moxie on the shoulder. He spoke into his walkie-talkie: "Great job, Micromage! You've kept your end of the bargain!"

Vertigo took a closer look at Moxie, to admire his handiwork. She was bound in two pairs of handcuffs, one on her left wrist, and one on her right. The other loop of each pair of handcuffs was connected to a huge timebomb that Moxie was sitting on.

Meanwhile, Mike was climbing the cable back up the vertical ventilation shaft. Once he reached the top, he coiled the cable back up in case he needed it again, then he raced back to where he had first entered.

Climbing out, Mike saw that Moxie was no longer cuffed to the clothes rack where he had left her. After looking around, Mike spotted her handcuffed to the timebomb.

The criminals were carrying loads of gold bars out to their van. At one inch tall, Mike was able to follow them without being spotted.

Mike raced out the door and under the van. He uncoiled his cable, and flung it over the front suspension. He connected the carabiner to the cable, and climbed up.

Once he was on top of the suspension, it was easy for Mike to climb up into the engine and disconnect the wire that connected the coil to the distributor.

"These idiots aren't going anywhere!" Mike said to himself.

Mike ran under each of the three vans, and pulled the coil wires from them, too. Mike found a sewer grate, and tossed the three wires in. After the vans were loaded up with gold bars, the bandits piled in, shut the doors, and tried to drive away. Of course, the ignitions didn't work, and about that time, about a dozen police cars pulled up. The reason it took so long for them to get there was because the crooks had clipped the phone lines to the mall, and a bystander had to call them on a cell-phone.

As the police apprehended the crooks, Mike ran back into the mall to check on Moxie. She was still handcuffed to the timebomb.

"We only have 20 minutes left, Mike! Go get the cops!" Moxie shouted to Mike.

When Mike ventured back outside, the police were afraid to enter the building, convinced there might be more gunmen inside. Mike used the neutrino assimilator function of his suit to return to normal size.

"Hey, flatfoot!" Mike shouted to the nearest cop. "We've got a girl hand-cuffed to a timebomb inside! You've got to get the keys from the gangleader!"

After adjusting to Mike’s outlandish costume, the officer went inside and saw that it was just as Mike had said. The police brought bolt cutters, and freed Moxie. With Mike standing next to her, she was interviewed by the throngs of reporters that had gathered outside the mall. The bomb squad was brought in, and the timebomb was de-activated.

Mike shrank and returned to normal size while television cameras were aimed at him as he did this, so his shrinking ability was now public knowledge.

When the interviews were at last over, Mike and Moxie walked back to the Micromobile. A man in a business suit was leaning against Mike's car.

"Can I help you?" Mike asked.

"Are you Mike Roman and Moxie Miller?” the man asked.

"Yes!" Mike and Moxie said simultaneously.

"Are you two going to be in southern California tomorrow night?"

"Yes," Mike answered, "in fact, we're on our way there as soon as we leave here!"

The man handed Mike a business card. "I represent a well-known Hollywood producer, and I've been asked to invite the two of you to a party in Bel-Air tomorrow evening. Dakota Ryan will be there!”

“I’ve seen all of her movies!” said Moxie.

Mike looked at the address on the back of the card, thanked the man, and put the card in the glove compartment.

Soon they were on the highway. Mike drove from southern Arizona to San Diego, California, where Mike and Moxie ate at a fancy restaurant. Then they were back on the highway again, driving north to Bel-Air. It was night time when they arrived at their hotel.

After the long drive, Mike was tired, so he crashed out and slept for about twelve hours. When he finally woke up to eat breakfast, it was after 11:00 a.m. in the morning and Moxie was reading the electronic tablet given to them by the time travelers.

"What're you doing?" Mike asked.

"While you were asleep, I started reading about the features built into the equipment given to us by those people from the future.”

“Did you find anything interesting?” Mike asked.

“Yes, you have a neural stimulator that you can use to make someone vomit you back up if you get swallowed!”

“That sounds crucial, hopefully I’ll never need to use it.” Mike looked at his watch. “Today's my day to work out, if you want to come with me, let's go!"

The duo got into the Micromobile, and Mike drove them to a gym not far from their hotel. Mike worked his triceps and chest, and Moxie worked out, too. She was trying to enlarge the size of her arms by doing triceps exercises, and she also did squats to build up her thighs. After a couple of hours of working out, they hit the showers, then went to an exclusive restaurant in Bel-Air where the waiters knew Mike, because he always ate there when he was in the Los Angeles area.

As Moxie finished her dessert (Mike didn't have dessert, just two orders of chicken breast, brown rice and broccoli, as well as two glasses of milk), Moxie pondered the invitation they had received at the mall in Arizona where the bandits had held up the place.

"Are you going to that party?" Moxie asked.

"The one that producer invited us to?" Mike asked.

"Yeah!" Moxie replied.

"It's still kind of early in the afternoon... he didn't really give us a time, so I guess it's okay if we show up a little early!"

Mike left a hundred dollar bill as a tip, and the two of them got back into the Micromobile and headed toward the party.

When they arrived at the address, it was a mansion. Valets took the Micromobile, and Mike and Moxie approached the door. A man standing at the door looked at the guest list, and Mike and Moxie were on the list. He ushered the two of them inside.

When they got inside, there were no celebrities, just producers in business suits and their families. There was a bar where a bartender was serving drinks, but Mike didn't want to take any chances. If Moxie threw a scene because she didn't want him to drink, then it would look like Moxie wore the pants in their relationship.

"Why are there no stars hanging out here?' Moxie asked. "I was hoping to bump into Dakota Ryan."

"Maybe it's just a party of producers and directors," said Mike.

Moxie approached some of the kids, while Mike hung out by himself.

"Hi!" Moxie said to one of the girls.

"Hey!" the girl replied, "you must be Moxie, from the Micromage & Vector-Girl videogame!"

"Yeah, that's me!" Moxie replied.

"My little brother loves that game!" the girl added. "I've never played the game myself, but I've heard about it!"

"Is your dad a producer?" Moxie asked.

"Yep! All the kids at this party are the children of producers or directors! See that girl over there? Her father is a billionaire!"

More producers started to arrive. The teenage actress Dakota Ryan arrived, and introduced herself to Mike. She was about the same age as Moxie.

“I’ve played your video game!” said Dakota.

"Hi there!" Mike said to a producer. “I'm Mike Roman, also known as Micromage!"

The producer shook his hand. "I've heard about your videogame. Didn't you design it yourself?"

"Yeah, but I used software that did most of the work. Still, it took a couple of years to make!"

Just then, a man with a beard wearing a black domino mask walked in followed by three girls in their mid teens wearing Domino masks and black tee shirts with a white skull and crossbones on the front. They also wore ultra-short black mini-skirts with a purple cape that only goes halfway down their back, and a gold colored utility belt with futuristic devices, as well as black mid-calf boots. One girl wore a red domino mask, another wore an orange one, and the third girl wore a violet domino mask.

The man carried a strange looking device. He had earmuffs on, the kind a sound engineer would use in a recording studio.

"I am Amnesio, Master of Mind Control! Accompanying me are my three nieces, April, May and June! Soon, you will all heed the clarion call of my mind control technology!”

“Mike,” Moxie whispered, “That’s the guy Duke warned us about!”

Just then, one of the security guards walked up to him and said, "I'm sorry, but you don't have an invitation, and you're not on the guest list, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to lea-"

At that instant, Amnesio aimed the strange device at the burly young security guard.

"Amnesio answers to no one!"

The device was apparently mesmerizing the man, because as Amnesio pointed it at his face, the security guard just stood there, as if he had forgotten why he had approached Amnesio in the first place.

Mike turned to Moxie. “I think you’re right, that must be the guy we were warned about! I'd better shrink before he uses his mind control technology on me! At shrunken size, maybe it will have no effect on me because my brainwaves are different when I'm shrunk!"

Mike keyed in the sequence on the control console of his wristband, and instantly shrank to one inch tall. Amnesio saw this, and turned on his device. Soon, everyone in the room was under the influence of his mind control device!

Amnesio looked at one of his teenage companions and said, "June, your Uncle Amnesio commands you to swallow Micromage! Do it! At once!"

The girl in the red domino mask picked Mike up, and directed him toward her mouth...

"Please, don't do this!" Mike pleaded. "You're under the control of Amnesio's mind control device!"

The girl brought the one-inch tall Mike closer to her open mouth. “If you answer one of my questions correctly, I won’t swallow you!”

“What’s the question?” Mike asked

"Calculate the last digit of the number pi!" June asked with a sinister smile.

"That's crazy!" Mike argued. "Pi is an irrational number! It's infinite! There is no last digit!"

"That's your question, and you agreed to my terms!" June said defiantly.

"But that's not fair!" Mike argued. "You can't ask me questions that have no answer!"

"I can ask you any question I want! You agreed to it!" June said. "Here's question number two: how fast is the speed of light in kilometers per second?"

"I know that one!" Mike shouted, "If I get this one right, you can't swallow me! The speed of light is 186,282 miles per second!"

"I said in kilometers per second, Mike! Not miles per second! Anyone can answer that question in miles per second!"

"Wait a minute!" Mike said, there's a formula for converting miles into kilometers! I should remember that formula from college!"

"You have ten seconds!" June said.

To Be Continued!

Chapter 3: Mike and Moxie Go Hollywood!

Amnesio stood there waiting for his niece, June, to obey him. He had gray shoulder-length hair, a slight gray beard, and a black domino mask. Mike stood on June’s palm as she raised him higher into the air, toward her mouth.

“Why are you doing this?” Mike asked.

“Why?” Amnesio replied. “In the century I came from, I developed mind control technology that was capable of overcoming countermeasures that protect people from mind control in my own era. My invention was part of my dissertation, but an unscrupulous professor stole credit for my discoveries, and claimed it as his own. Nobody in my century will ever know that I am responsible for the mind control tech that I developed. I decided to travel back to your century and exploit this era with my advanced super science!”

“That’s horrible,” Mike replied. “I’ve heard of things like that happening in my time, as well.”

“The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrčd with their bones.” said Amnesio.

“Julius Caesar Act 3, Scene 2,” Mike replied. “I was an English professor at a junior college for quite some time before going back to school to study computer programming. I know a lot about Shakespeare.”

“I’m aware of that,” said Amnesio. “In my century you are a well known historical figure. I minored in English while majoring in electrical engineering. Shakespeare was a guilty pleasure of mine.”

Amnesio turned his attention to June, who was interrupted before she was about to swallow Mike. “You may proceed to swallow Micromage, June!”

June hesitated, Amnesio aimed his mind control pistol at June. “When Amnesio gives a command, it is obeyed!"

“I’ll gladly swallow him, Unc! There’s no need to threaten me!” June tossed Mike into her mouth, and a moment later, swallowed him!

June and Amnesio high-fived each other once Mike was inside of June’s belly.

Meanwhile, Mike slid down her esophagus to the stench of June’s stomach.

"I need to design a gas mask for this costume!" Mike said to himself.

Meanwhile, in the living room of the mansion, Amnesio's nieces were gathering the valuables from the wealthy party-goers and putting them in pillow cases. The three girls were not all identical: the one known as June had medium length light brown hair, the second girl, May, was blonde, and the third girl, April, had long black hair. One thing they had in common were skinny yet athletic figures.

Moxie quickly forgot about Mike and noticed Amnesio’s nieces each wore black shirts, with a white skull and crossbones on each shirt. Why Amnesio had brought them with him to the crime scene was a mystery.

There was a personal computer in the room, One of the kids had been using it to access a chatroom. Amnesio's nieces quickly exited that website and brought up a sight more to Amnesio's liking.

"You will notice a computer over here," Amnesio instructed, "I want each and every one of you to use your credit cards to contribute one million dollars into my bank account! Failure to do so will make Amnesio very angry!"

The producers and directors stepped up one by one, and whipped out their credit cards. Moxie counted them, and figured that Amnesio would be a multi-millionaire, judging by how many celebrities were stepping up to the plate.

The teenage actress Dakota Ryan looked at Moxie with a puzzled look on her face. She took Moxie aside and whispered to her: “If this guy is using mind control, why isn’t it working on us?”

“Maybe it doesn’t work on teenagers and kids,” Moxie replied, “so his nieces will be unaffected!”

While Amnesio's attention was diverted to the computer screen, Moxie tried to exit the mansion.

"Where do you think you're going, young lady?" said April. She stood there with a futuristic weapon in her hand.

“What is that, some kind of ray-gun?” Moxie asked.

“It can re-arrange your chromosomes!” April replied. “With this device, I can make you allergic to peanut butter, or give you Alopecia and all your hair would fall out! Now get back inside!”

“Okay,” Moxie replied, and turned back around and went upstairs and locked herself in a bathroom. She used her communicator built into her arm band to contact Mike.

“Mike, can you hear me?” Moxie asked.

“Yes!” Mike replied. “How do I activate that neural stimulator so June will vomit me up?”

“It’s built into your gauntlet,” Moxie replied. “There should be a button next to the miniaturization console!”

“Found it!” said Mike.

In the living room, June ran for a bathroom and vomited into the sink. Mike, who stood an inch tall, was treading the surface of the vomit. June was unaware that Mike had been expelled from her body.

“Moxie, I’m in the sink of the downstairs bathroom! I’ll stay shrunk so Amnesio doesn’t see me, come and get me!”

“I’m on my way!” Moxie replied, and she tried to hurry down the stairs without looking like she was hurrying, so as not to alert Amnesio and his nieces.

In less than a minute, Moxie was inside the downstairs bathroom, fishing Mike out of the sink. She rinsed him off.

"Mike," Moxie said, "The mind control device doesn't work on teenagers! Me and the other kids are unaffected! But Amnesio has all the adults mesmerized, and he's getting them each to deposit a million dollars in his bank account!"

"It couldn't hurt some of these rich punks to cough up a million bucks!" Mike said.

"Mike, what Amnesio's doing is wrong! We have to stop him!"

"Moxie, this is a job for the police! We don't even know what we're up against! He's using mind control technology that is a quantum leap above and beyond what even our government is capable of!”

"But Mike," Moxie pleaded, "we're heroes! We have to stop Amnesio!"

"I'm in this gig for the money!" Mike replied. "Nobody's paying me to risk my neck chasing down thugs from the future!”

"When you were a kid, didn't you ever read comic books? Didn't you believe in heroes, Mike?" Moxie asked.

"Yes, but then I grew up!"

"Those time travelers trusted us to stop Amnesio!” said Moxie. “We’re the only ones who can stop him! All I ask is that you help me defeat Amnesio! I need your help for my plan to work!"

"What's your plan?" Mike asked.

Once the plan was explained, Moxie put Mike in the empty pack on her belt, which served as a prop for her character. Because it was now empty, it was the best hiding place for Micromage.

Moxie exited the bathroom and entered the main living room, where she was met by June. "What were you doing in there?" she asked Moxie.

"I was using the bathroom!" Moxie replied. June was satisfied with this explanation, and went back to whatever she had been doing.

Moxie walked up to the kids. "Do they still think you're affected by the mind control device?" Moxie whispered. The kids nodded their heads in assent. "I have a plan!" Moxie told them. Moxie then walked up to the lady who owned the mansion.

"Is this the only computer in the house?" Moxie asked.

"No, there's another one upstairs!" the woman replied.

"Does it have Internet access, like this one does?" Moxie asked.

"Yes!" the woman replied, eager to deposit one million dollars in Amnesio's bank account.

Moxie headed up the stairs, when she was sure Amnesio's assistants weren't watching her. She checked each bedroom, one after the other.

"There sure are a lot of bedrooms in this place!" Moxie said to herself, "I guess that's why it's called a mansion!"

Finally, she found what she was looking for: a bedroom with a computer. She pulled Mike out, and did as he instructed.

"Are you going to have me program in Fortran?" Moxie asked. "I might be bright, but I can't create a computer virus in like, five minutes!"

"Yeah?" Mike asked. "Well, don't worry, just go to the website I tell you to, and there's a virus I already programmed that you can download, to infect Amnesio's bank computer with a virus that will wipe out his entire bank account! I majored in computer programming in college, remember?"

Once Moxie found the website, she pulled out a flash drive from her utility belt and downloaded the virus. When the program was ready, Moxie copied the virus to the flash drive and carried it downstairs, with Mike in her pouch that was attached to her belt.

When she got downstairs, Amnesio was instructing his assistants. Moxie went to a window, opened it slightly, and tossed Mike into some bushes. As he climbed down and made his way back to the Micromobile, Moxie approached the computer.

"I have millions of dollars too, Amnesio!" Moxie said. "But I need to use this flash drive to access my bank code. Is that cool?"

"Yes, but hurry!" Amnesio replied.

Meanwhile, Mike was at the Micromobile. He pulled out the cable from his costume and attached the grapnel hook, and threw it until the hook caught on the passenger side leather seat. Mike began climbing up. When he was inside, he found Moxie’s cell phone and flipped it open (it took all his strength), and dialed 911. When the operator came on, he told her of the situation, but was careful not to mention the mind control technology. He didn't want the lady to think this was a prank call!

Back in the mansion, Moxie successfully uploaded the program from the flash drive. Soon, Amnesio's bank account computer was hit with a virus that wiped out all memory of Amnesio's account, but didn't harm the other accounts of innocent people who had money at that same bank.

"Uncle Amnesio!” June said. "Vector-Girl did something to your bank account! I think she uploaded a virus from that flash drive!”

"No!" Amnesio shouted.

"Amnesio," May said, "we've got to leave now! They’ve probably alerted the authorities! They might be on their way over here right now!"

Amnesio turned to Moxie on his way out the front door. "You may have defeated me this time little girl, but we'll meet again! And when we do, I'll have the last laugh!"

A moment later, Amnesio and his three nieces were gone. Moxie looked around at the adults. The other kids started waving their hands in front of the faces of the previously mesmerized adults. They began to snap out of it. Mike returned to normal size, and less than a minute later, the police arrived. When the police finally left a half hour later, the party got rolling again as if nothing had happened.

A producer walked up to Mike and Moxie. “Hi, I'm a producer and I'm interested in producing a movie about the two of you! I plan on calling it: Micromage & Vector-Girl! What do you think?"

"That's a pretty unique title!" Moxie said sarcastically.

"I want the two of you to portray yourselves in the film! I'll give you each one million dollars up front, and a percentage of the movie's gross!"

"Yeah, I'll do it, but it has to be soon! Me and Moxie will be on vacation for a couple of months, so we need to film it right away!"

"No problem!" the producer replied. "I'll hire the fastest writer in Hollywood to knock out a script in less than a week! I want to feature Amnesio as the villain! Of course, we're going to have to get an actor who looks like him, because the real Amnesio is still at large!"

The producer handed Mike a business card. "Here's how you can contact me if there's any questions. I want you and Moxie in my office tomorrow, to sign the contracts."

"I'd like to speak with the writer, as soon as the script is ready!" Mike said.

"No problem!" the producer replied. "I'll call you when he has it ready. It shouldn't be more than a few days, because like I said, he's fast."

After Mike and Moxie went back to their hotel, they decided to get accustomed to southern California, since they would be filming a movie in a couple of weeks. Mike and Moxie went to Gold's gym in Santa Monica, or to World gym, depending on Mike's preference that day. They lived like royalty on the hotel room service, and enjoyed their vacation from touring the country.

Mike got a call from the producer, and wrote down the address of the hotshot writer who was working on the script. Mike and Moxie drove over there. It was a modest house for the upscale neighborhood it was located in, but any real estate agent worth their mettle could've fetched $700,000 for it easily.

They walked to the front door and knocked. The door was answered by a guy who looked wired. He had a cup of coffee in his hand.

"I'm Mike Roman, and this is Moxie Miller. The producer said you'd talk about the screenplay with us?"

"Oh, yeah!" the man said, opening the door wider. "I'm Wally Williams. They say I'm the best!"

"If you typed a screenplay in three days, then you are the best!" Mike replied.

Wally sat Mike and Moxie down in his computer room, and brought them each a bottle of water. He pulled out a copy of the screenplay, and read some of it to Mike. At some points, he would describe the story in his own words; at other points, he would quote the screenplay word for word.

"At the end of act two, you get frozen by Amnesio in a cryogenic experiment!" Wally explained. "Now I know this guy is into mind control, but that's not dramatic enough! We had to get him involved with other kinds of technology to provide conflict!"

"I don't have a problem with that!" Mike said. "But what I'd like to know is, how do you do it? How did you write this screenplay in three days?"

"I get amped up!" Wally said.

"On what?” Mike asked.

"Coffee!" Wally said. "I'm a caffeine-freak! I drank about sixteen pots of coffee over the past three days, and I've been up for over seventy-two hours!"

"You should look into getting into a twelve-step program!" Mike replied sarcastically.

"Oh, by the way," Wally added, "you and Moxie are supposed to report to the studio at 5:30 Monday morning for the first day of shooting."

"5:30 in the morning?" Mike asked.

"Yeah," said Wally, "things get started early in Hollywood!"

Monday morning, Moxie and Mike showed up at the gates of the studio just before 5:30 a.m. They were let in, and they were met by the producer, who took them to their trailer.

A gaffer walked up and handed a hot cup of coffee to Moxie, and she took it eagerly. When he walked around to hand a second cup of coffee to Mike, he tripped over a power cord that was connected to one of the cameras, and spilled the hot coffee all over the front of Mike's costume.

"Oww!" Mike shouted.

The producer saw this and walked up to the gaffer. "You there, what's your name?"

"Toby!" the gaffer replied.

"Well, Toby! You're fired!" the producer said.

"No, that's not necessary!" Mike said. "It was an accident! I have another costume in the trunk of the Micromobile!"

The producer looked at the gaffer and said: "Okay, you're un-fired! But you should be grateful Mike Roman is such a nice guy!"

The producer and the director approached Mike and Moxie. The producer introduced the director to Mike. "I hired this guy straight out of USC! They're cheaper that way, they’re not well known enough to be prima donnas yet, and they do just as good of a job as a more well known director!"

"That's very cost-effective," said Mike as he shook hands with the director.

"We're going to film act three first," said the director.

"Why are we filming the ending first?" Moxie asked.

"It's for insurance reasons. It's in case something happened to either of you before we finished filming."

Filming got underway, and twelve hours later, the day was over. Mike and Moxie got up early on Tuesday, and repeated the process. Wednesday and Thursday were no different. When it came time to film a scene with Amnesio, Mike marveled at how realistic the actor who portrayed him looked just like the real Amnesio. It was hard to believe that latex and make-up could achieve such realistic results.

As the weeks passed, the ending of act two was finally being filmed. There was a set on a soundstage with a cryogenic lab, and Mike was supposed to be lowered into a freezing chamber as Moxie watched from a wall where she was handcuffed, helpless to enlist her aid.

As the actor who was portraying Amnesio finished his lunch, he got up to walk to the bathroom. A hand reached from behind and covered his face with a rag soaked in chloroform, rendering him unconscious. The man who carried his sleeping body to another area of the set was none other than the real Amnesio!

Amnesio and his three nieces had gotten onto the grounds, in an effort to seek revenge against Micromage & Vector-Girl for foiling his evil plans at that party in Bel-Air. His nieces wheeled away the cryogenic chamber, and replaced it with a sleeker, deadlier looking version. The new version didn't look like a just a prop. It looked functional, like it could really work!

When the time came to shoot the scene, Moxie was handcuffed against the wall, according to the script, and Mike was chained to a gurney suspended upside-down as he was slowly lowered into the cryogenic freezing chamber.

"What do you hope to accomplish by doing this, Amnesio?" Mike said, following the script line for line.

"I got a copy of this script, and I was amazed at the resemblance!” Amnesio replied.

What? Mike thought to himself. This isn't in the script!

Amnesio went on: “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

“The Merchant of Venice Act 3, Scene 1,” Mike replied.

“You should have known I would come back for revenge, with my super science there is no safe harbor from my wrath! You cost me a lot of money, Micromage!”

Amnesio continued: "This technology looks rather conventional, don’t you think?” Amnesio ripped a piece of equipment from a prop that was meant to represent future technology, and threw it to the floor. “I know the screenplay calls for you being frozen in a cryogenics experiment, but since I’m from twenty thousand years in the future, I have a way to slow down subjective time so you will be immobilized for two months, Micromage! It’s much more advanced than simple cryogenics.”

"Cut!" the director shouted, but Amnesio's three female assistants pointed machine guns at him, preventing him from approaching Amnesio.

"But don't worry!" Amnesio continued, "The effects of the temporal stasis experiment will wear off in exactly sixty days. Good Night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow."

Amnesio's laugh filled the soundstage as Mike was lowered into the vat that would freeze him, at least according to the screenplay. Moxie could only look on helplessly as Mike was lowered into the chamber.

When he was inside, Amnesio keyed the control console and sealed him in, initiating the temporal stasis process!

“Romeo & Juliet Act two-“ Mike began, but he was cut off by the temporal stasis device kicking in.

And as soon as it began, it was all over. By the time security arrived, Amnesio and his nieces were long gone, and Mike Roman was completely immobile. Moxie was released from her handcuffs, and walked over and viewed what remained of Mike.

"Is he dead?" Moxie asked the director.

"We can only assume that Amnesio was telling the truth, that there is a way to resuscitate him!"

To Be Continued!

Chapter 4: Hot on Amnesio's Trail!

When Mike was in temporal stasis, the producer and the director both alerted the authorities. The local police were called, and they, in turn notified the FBI. The FBI agents combed the area for clues, but Amnesio had been wearing gloves when he had activated the controls to the strange temporal manipulation equipment, so there were no fingerprints.

Moxie didn't cry. She still held onto the hope that Mike could and would be revived. The southern California branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation took the hibernation capsule Mike was contained in, and made sure it was constantly hooked up to a power supply. Their best engineers tried to access the software inside. When they succeeded, they were baffled to find out the technical schematics and diagrams specific to the resuscitation process seemed to be based on solid scientific ground. One of the engineers notified the director.

"So it seems," the engineer began, "that his heart is still beating, his metabolism has been slowed down almost completely. The software built into this equipment states that Mike Roman will return to normal 60 days from the day he was put into stasis.”

The director was puzzled. "So you're telling me this Mike Roman guy might survive?"

"I'm telling you that he will definitely survive!" the engineer informed him.

"Why would somebody force someone into hibernation then bother to restore them afterwards? Why not just kill him?” the director asked.

"I don't know," the engineer answered, "but phase two, the resuscitation process will begin automatically in less than two months. All we have to do is keep that hibernation capsule hooked up to a power supply!"

While this was going on, Moxie secured a house for herself in the Hollywood Hills. With her vast wealth, it was no problem coming up with the money, and because Mike had gotten her legally emancipated when she turned fifteen, she didn't need her parents' permission. She made it her mission to track down Amnesio. She took a course through the mail that taught her how to be a private investigator, and bought a home computer and got it hooked up to the Internet.

She spent twelve hours a day on the Internet, tracking down leads that led to dead-ends.

"I found a front company owned by Amnesio!" said Moxie to herself. Moxie took a bus to the neighborhood where the company was located, and snuck in through a back door. She hid in a closet next to the main office, and listened to a conversation through an air vent.

"All we need to do is get my mind control device on that satellite today," said Amnesio, "and we'll be able to control the minds of millions of people simultaneously!"

"You're a genius, Uncle Amnesio!" said April. “It gives me goosebumps being involved in this master plan!"

"Yeah," said May, "you're gonna go down in history!"

"Help me load the mind control device in the van," said Amnesio.

Moxie waited until the coast was clear, then she got out and climbed into the van and hid in a storage compartment. June drove the van to the company that was manufacturing the satellite. Two vans were driven, and all three of Amnesio's nieces were onboard. When they unloaded the equipment and went inside, Moxie climbed out of the storage compartment and followed them inside.

When she peaked around the corner of the open door, she saw that Amnesio had taken aim with one of his mind control devices, and the workers at the factory were under mind control.

"You will install this device in your satellite!" said Amnesio.

Moxie could only watch helplessly as the workers did as Amnesio instructed. The mind control device was installed, and hooked up to the satellite's power source. Moxie was tapped on the shoulder. When she turned to look, it was April, one of Amnesio's assistants.

"Uncle Amnesio!" shouted April. "I've captured Vector-Girl!”

Amnesio turned to look, and walked over toward Moxie. “Render her unconscious!”

"Sure thing, Unc!” said April, and she reached into a backpack and pulled out a bottle of strange chemicals. She dumped some in a rag, and tried to hold the rag over Moxie’s mouth. Moxie struggled, so April shouted for May to help her, and the two of them were able to successfully hold Moxie down long enough to hold the rag over her mouth, causing Moxie to lose consciousness.

When Moxie woke up, she was in a motel room. There was a note on a DVD player that said 'play.' Moxie pushed the button, and Amnesio appeared on the TV screen.

"Vector-Girl, you were injected with a powerful sedative that knocked you out for several days. By the time you watch this, you will have been asleep long enough so that the satellite is already on its way to Vandenberg Air Force Base to be launched aboard an Ariane Titan rocket! There is absolutely nothing you can do to change things! With my mind control device in space, I will be able to control the minds of millions! This August during the Teen Preference awards I will activate the mind control device and control people through a TV broadcast! This message will self-destruct, so don't bother trying to turn over this DVD to the authorities!"

The recording ended with Amnesio's maniacal laughter, then the DVD player exploded, frightening Moxie momentarily. Moxie sprayed fire suppressant from her gauntlet put out the fire, then she got out her cell phone and dialed a number.

"I need a taxi!" said Moxie.

Moxie waited outside for the taxi. When it arrived, she instructed the driver that she wanted to go to Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc.

"That's over a hundred miles from here!" said the driver. Moxie pulled out twenty one-hundred dollar bills.

"I've got it covered!"

Moxie jumped into the back seat of the taxi and closed the door. "Is it still Monday?" Moxie asked.

"It's Thursday!" said the driver.

"Amnesio was right about that sedative!" said Moxie.

"Who?” the driver asked.

"Nothing, just drive to Vandenberg!"

Two hours later, the taxi dropped Moxie off in front of the Air Force Base. She approached the guard in the control room in front of the base just as a rocket was being launched. She could see the vertical exhaust trail in the sky.

"You've got to warn them!" said Moxie. “They can't launch that Ariane Titan rocket! It has renegade technology attached to it!"

"They've already launched it!” the man said. "It's too late!"

Moxie looked toward the ocean and saw the Ariane Titan rocket hurtling toward space.

"Darn!" said Moxie.

Days turned into weeks, and eventually a month and a half passed. Moxie celebrated her sixteenth birthday alone. The Micromage & Vector-Girl movie opened in theaters, but Mike was still a popsicle. It had almost the same kind of success as any blockbuster of recent years aimed at kids and teenagers. Kids were lined up around the block with their parents, and teenagers went and saw the movie again and again. Moxie paid little attention to this, however. She finally found a clue that she felt might lead her to Amnesio.

There were Micromage & Vector-Girl comic books. Mike had hired a small comic publishing company to create fictional adventures for Mike and Moxie. Because of the success of the film, issue one of the first Micromage & Vector-Girl comic book was hard to find. Ironically, there was a company that was offering mint condition copies of the first issue at half of what they were now worth, which normally sold for about $300. It made sense to Moxie that this company was counterfeiting the comic books.

Moxie looked up at her Micromage & Vector-Girl calendar and sighed. "The Teen Preference awards are in a week" she said to herself, "me and Mike have been nominated, but he's still in hibernation!”

She pulled out her cell phone and used speed dial to call the director of the FBI, as she had been doing several times a week for nearly the past two months, ever since Mike had been frozen. Someone answered.

"Hello?" Moxie said.

"Moxie,” the director said, "I think you'd better get down here! Mike Roman is set to come out of hibernation today!”

Moxie hung up the phone and caught a taxi-cab. In less than an hour, she was at the FBI headquarters, and she was let in by a receptionist who recognized her. When she got there, Mike was still unconscious. He began stirring soon after she arrived, and woke up.

“Scene two!” said Mike, finishing the sentence he had began on the day he had gone into hibernation.

Moxie giggled. “You just finished a sentence you started two months ago!”

Somebody handed Mike a glass of water, and he greedily guzzled it down like a man who hadn't drank water for several days.

"Mike!" Moxie said. "I've got a place in the Hollywood Hills now. We can stay there!"

"Doc," Mike said, "when am I clear to go home?"

"From our test results, it seems that you can go home today. Physiologically, you haven’t aged in the past two months.”

About an hour later, Moxie and Mike were sitting in the back of a taxi-cab heading for Moxie’s new house.

"So you're sixteen now, huh?" Mike said. "It was just a month and and a half before your sixteenth birthday when I got put into temporal stasis."

"We’ve got more important things to worry about,” said Moxie. “I tracked down a comic book publishing company that I think is counterfeiting copies of the first issue of the Micromage & Vector-Girl comic book! That comic is worth three-hundred dollars, but he's only charging a hundred and fifty dollars. I think Amnesio's behind it!"

Mike tilted his head back with his hands on his gut and let out a loud laugh. “Moxie, Amnesio is a big-time hood! What would he be doing messing around with comic books?"

"I know it sounds weird, but I've checked out almost a dozen companies he was behind. Amnesio was always one step ahead of me, and terminated the company and destroyed the records if I snooped too close. This time, I didn't make the mistake of pushing too hard... he doesn't know I'm onto him!"

"I'll tell you what," Mike said, "I'll drive us over there if you write down the address and punch it into the gps! I'll prove it to you that Amnesio isn't behind this!"

Soon, they were on the road in the Micromobile. After driving past the business they were looking for, Mike parked a couple of blocks away, and they walked to the side of the building of the business in question. Mike was wearing his Micromage costume, because Moxie had demanded it. There was an air vent with a grill that had square holes about two inches in diameter, both vertically and horizontally. Mike activated the neutrino dissimilator on his wristband, and keyed the sizing scope to shrink down to one inch tall.

Moxie picked Mike up in her hand, and said: "Good luck, Micromage!" before placing him on the air vent. They still had their two-way radios to communicate with. Mike's was built into his wristband and Moxie, who was also wearing her space-age Vector-Girl costume, had one built into the gauntlet of her left wrist, also.

Mike made his way through the vent. There was a circular fan blade, but it wasn't moving.

"So far, so good!" Mike said to Moxie through his two-way. When he got to the other side of the vent, Mike was surprised to see that although machinery was active, there were no workers hustling around. Upon closer inspection, Mike saw that robots were doing all the work, much like an automobile manufacturing plant in Detroit. Mike jumped down from his perch and investigated further.

There was a light on in an office down the hall. The best way to look through the office of the window would be to climb on top of one of the robots. This would kill two birds with one stone, because Mike could survey what the robots were working on, as well as seeing who was in the office.

Mike climbed a power cord and found himself on top of one of the printers. Sure enough, hundreds of copies of issue one of the Micromage & Vector-Girl comic book were being printed!

"Vector-Girl!” Mike said into his two-way radio. "Everything is just as you said it was! They're printing counterfeit copies of our comic book in here!"

"Okay Mike," Moxie replied, "you've done your job, now come back to me! I don't want you getting hurt!"

"I'm going to see who's in the office!" Mike replied. "I want to see if it's really Amnesio!"

"Mike!" Moxie said angrily. "Our work here is done! We need to contact the police!”

Mike turned off his radio. Moxie’s wrath he could endure; it was his insatiable curiosity he couldn't avoid. Looking into the office, he saw a girl in her mid teens; it was obviously one of Amnesio’s nieces. As he struggled to get a better view, to see who she was talking to, Mike fell downward, toward the printer.

He landed on top of a comic book cover that was on it's way to the saddle stitching device. Mike tried to roll out of the way, but before he could, a laser scanner picked up his image, and the printer stopped immediately, and an alarm began to sound.

Two teenage girls with domino masks ran out of the office. They were wearing tee-shirts and ultra-short mini-skirts. They knew a foreign object had landed in the printer, but at the moment, they didn't know it was Mike.

"Amnesio is going to to flip out if we don't meet his daily quota!" one girl said to the other.

Mike quickly scurried down into the equipment as the two girls tried to assess what was wrong. When he hit the tile floor, he saw where their shoes were pointing, and ran in another direction. A curtain hung over the air vent he had entered through, and a power cord to a fan touched the floor before coiling up to where the curtain began. Mike climbed the cord, then grabbed onto the curtain and made his way toward the vent. Once there, he grabbed onto what to him was a metal bar (it was really one of the wires composing the air vent), and he climbed into the vent and ran to the outside.

Moxie was waiting for him, and she cupped her left palm and Mike jumped in. "They're working for Amnesio!" Mike told her.

"I told you so!" Moxie said. "You doubted me, but I knew what I was doing!”

Moxie cupped Mike in her hand and stood up, and walked back to the Micromobile. Mike re-enlarged. After returning to normal size, Mike drove them back to Moxie’s house in the Hollywood Hills.

Moxie went to her personal computer and checked her e-mail. Suddenly, she saw something she had never seen before on her computer. An e-mail from Amnesio! Was this a trick? Was someone posing as Amnesio? She opened the e-mail and read it.

"Mike! You're never going to believe this!"

"What is it?” Mike asked.

"Amnesio sent me an e-mail!"

"What does it say?" Mike asked.

"He says he has a plan for attacking the Teen Preference awards show! Mike, you and I have been nominated! He's targeting that awards show because we're both going to be there! He's challenging us!"

"Then we'll be ready for him!" Mike replied.

To Be Continued!

Chapter 5: Amnesio Strikes Again!

Mike looked up and saw Moxie’s Micromage & Vector-Girl calendar.

"Holy crap!" Mike said. "There's a bodybuilding contest less than a week away! I have to start training!"

Mike took off his Micromage uniform and stripped down to the swimming trunks he wore beneath his costume. "Moxie, whaddaya think? Is my bodyfat down to contest levels?"

"Sure, Mike! I think you'll win your pro card this time, for sure! You were prepping for another contest before you got frozen, anyway, remember?"

Mike realized this was true. There had been another contest he was less than a month away from when he got frozen. Still, in spite of this, it would be a real challenge to get in shape in less than a week.

Mike's approach was to spend a lot of time in the gym. Moxie coached him as he did bench presses, and used the weight machines to work on his chest and shoulders. Every day in the gym, Mike hit a different body part. One day he hit arms, the next he worked his legs. Mike engaged in workouts that would fell a horse!

Moxie was also in charge of his nutrition, making sure he got a lot of protein with minimal carbohydrates. The day of the contest, Mike was in the best shape of his life. He was ripped and shredded, and he was down to less than five percent bodyfat.

"Being in hibernation must've given you some kind of advantage, Mike!" Moxie said as they drove to the contest. "I've never seen you look this good!"

They pulled into the parking lot, and a valet took the Micromobile after Mike handed him the keys. Moxie and Mike strolled across the parking lot. "I'm hungry!" Moxie said. "I forgot to eat lunch. I guess I'll go get a protein bar while you're getting yourself psyched up for the contest."

Mike and Moxie parted after they entered the building; Mike went to the locker room, and Moxie went to the tables where products were being sold. She grabbed a strawberry protein bar and asked, "How much?"

The attendant said: "These are complimentary, young lady! Go ahead and take one!"

Moxie took two. While walking around eating her first protein bar, she spotted a teenage girl who might be one of Amnesio's assistants, here to case the contest. She had medium length light brown hair, and she appeared to be skinny, but it was difficult to tell, because she was wearing a trenchcoat. It was hard to recognize her, because she was also wearing sunglasses.

Since Moxie was wearing her costume, she had the built-in transceiver she could use to communicate with Mike. She raised her forearm to chin level discreetly, and with the index finger of her other hand, activated the two-way radio. "Micromage! This is Vector-Girl, come in! Do you copy?"

Mike, meanwhile, was getting out of his Micromage costume, and when he saw the green light that indicated Moxie was trying to communicate with him, he flicked the button and said: "This is Mike! What's up, Moxie?”

"There's some creepy chick who looks like she might be one of Amnesio's assistants! I'm not sure though, because she isn’t wearing one of those goofy domino masks!”

"Well," Mike replied, "keep an eye on her, and let me know if you find out for sure that she works for Amnesio! In the mean time, stay close to her, keep an eye on her, and whatever you do, if a mind control device is used, pretend like you're affected by it just like all the adults!"

"Got it, Mike!" Moxie replied, "over and out!"

Mike put his Micromage costume in his locker. He was dressed in his posing trunks, and began to apply the oil bodybuilders use when they're on stage. Meanwhile, Moxie was keeping an eye on the suspicious girl. When she took a seat, Moxie sat down close to her. Not right next to her, but a couple of chairs down from her.

About fifteen minutes later, the show was ready to begin. The bodybuilders filed out onto the stage, and Moxie waved to Mike. The suspicious young woman pulled out a cell-phone, and started dialing a number. Moxie leaned close so she could hear the conversation.

"Yes, Amnesio!" the woman said clearly. "The transponder is placed in the rafters, just as you ordered! You can begin the mind control session now, because the contest is underway!"

Moxie lifted her eyes, and saw a strange device in the rafters above the stage. It was a transponder, capable of relaying Amnesio's mind controlling alpha waves. They would affect all of the adults in the room, but not Moxie or any of the other children who had been brought here by their parents. Moxie was counting on the fact that Amnesio still seemed to be unaware that his mind control technology didn't work on kids.

Soon, after the device warmed up, Amnesio's voice could be heard throughout the large room: "This is Amnesio, master of mind control! I am now in charge of your minds! You will do exactly as I command! First, those of you who have checkbooks with you, write out a check for half your savings, and make it out to me! My assistant, June, will walk around with a large purse, and you can drop the check inside!"

Moxie watched as the contest went on as if nothing unusual was going on, and saw June walking around collecting checks from people. June was wearing earmuffs to block out the mind controlling alpha waves. The announcer could be heard at a different volume than Amnesio's voice, and he pointed out the strong-points and flaws of each competitor.

Moxie looked over at the judges. They were making notes as if this contest was going along as planned. Moxie tried hard to look mesmerized, just like everyone else. As the contest progressed, June’s purse became so full she had to push down on the pile of checks inside. If she got the checks to Amnesio within the next couple of hours, he would still have time to deposit them before the banks closed for the day.

Amnesio's menacing voice went on: "This command is for the judges! Mike Roman must lose! Forget about him, just focus on the others, Mike Roman is in last place!"

Moxie could understand this. Why would Amnesio want Mike to win? Mike and Moxie had cost him millions of dollars by foiling his scheme to trick a room full of millionaires to deposit money into Amnesio's account. Still, Mike had won every amateur bodybuilding contest he had entered, because he didn't start competing until he was very well developed. There were at least one or two other guys at this contest who could give Mike a run for his money, but it had seemed like a sure win for Mike, before Amnesio's interference.

When June was done collecting the money, she pulled out her cell-phone, and called Amnesio. "Amnesio! The device works just as you planned! The experiment is a success! Now we know it will work during the Teen Preference awards in a few days!"

Moxie waited for June to leave, then for the contest to end. The first, second, and third place winners were announced, and Mike was given honorable mention for fourth place.

She went backstage to talk to Mike. "It looks like Amnesio didn't strike!" said Mike.

"What are you talking about?" Moxie asked.

"He didn't do anything tonight!" said Mike. "It looks like we need to take you in to a repair shop to get your female intuition checked out!"

"Mike," Moxie replied angrily, "he mesmerized all of the adults in the audience! Didn't you see June walking around with a purse collecting checks from everyone? Her purse was so full of checks, she almost couldn't fit it all in there!"

Mike started laughing. "Moxie, don't you think I would be aware if Amnesio used mind control on me?"

"That's just the point!" Moxie countered, "the reason you can't remember is because Amnesio did use mind control on you! There's a transponder in the rafters if you want me to prove it to you! And listen to this!"

The voice of June could be heard informing Amnesio about the Teen Preference awards. "I started recording her the second time she was on the phone! They're planning on using mind control during the Teen Preference awards! It would be too difficult to try to climb up to the rafters to get the mind control device at normal size, but if you shrink, I can launch you up there!”

Mike took this seriously. Still in his posing trunks, Mike went back out to the stage and had Moxie point out Amnesio's transponder. What he saw convinced him. "Moxie, don't tell anyone about the transponder. I'm getting into my Micromage uniform so I can shrink!"

Mike greedily munched on a protein bar backstage as he put his Micromage uniform back on. He downed the last of the protein bar, took a swig of water, and activated the costume. Moxie was standing there waiting for him to shrink. Once Mike was an inch tall, Moxie picked him up and carried him out to the stage. "Okay, launch me toward the transponder, and don't miss!"

Moxie pulled her right arm back, and swung it out and let go of Micromage. He went flying through the air, and landed perfectly on top of the transponder. He used his wrist transceiver to communicate with Moxie. “Vector-Girl! Bull’s eye! I'm right on target!"

"What do you see?" Moxie asked.

"I see the transponder, obviously, and a car battery hooked up to a full-wave rectifier! The transponder is plugged into the rectifier, that's what powered it!"

"Do you think it's booby-trapped?" Moxie asked.

"I don't think so," Mike replied, "but something tells me this technology is way out of my league! I need to take this to a professor I know at Cal Tech University in Pasadena!"

"What kind of a professor is he?" Moxie asked through her wrist-radio.

"He specializes in psionics!" Mike replied. "I'm going to unhook this transponder. Can you catch it?"

"I think so!" Moxie replied, and stood directly underneath Mike. He found a strap that was attached to the rafter. A second strap wrapped around the transponder, car battery, and rectifier. By using the ratchet tool that was connected to the strap that was attached to the rafter, Mike could unhook all three devices.

He took hold of the ratchet tool, and swung it far to the right, then far to the left. Each time he pulled it in one direction, it made a sound that indicated it was loosening. Over and over Mike pulled on the ratchet lever, until the straps were loose. Mike keyed his wrist-radio, and asked, "Vector-Girl, are you ready?"

She said: "Yes!" and Mike dropped the transponder down to her. It didn't take much effort on Mike's part, because the transponder was wider than the rafter, and it was ready to fall by itself. Moxie caught it, and set it on the ground. "Do you think we need that other stuff?" Moxie asked.

"No," Mike replied over his wrist-radio, "the professor will be able to plug it into any A.C. outlet! Now, are you ready to catch me?"

Moxie nodded her head. They didn't need to use their wrist-radios, because they were in visual contact with each other. Below him, Moxie looked to Mike to be a teenage colossus, her hands open and waiting for him. Mike jumped down, and landed in her hands. Moxie set him on the floor and he re-enlarged.

Mike picked up the transponder, and carried it to the Micromobile. Once it was loaded, they were on their way to pay a visit to the professor Mike knew who was an expert in psionics!

To Be Continued

Chapter 6: Professor Hyperion

Mike drove the Micromobile toward Pasadena. Moxie asked, “What's the Professor’s name?"

"Professor Hyperion!" Mike replied.

When they got there, people stopped and stared as Mike got the transponder out of the trunk and carried it to the professor's lab. After walking through a maze of hallways, they found his office. Inside, a gray-haired man with a goatee stood up from where he had been sitting and greeted Mike.

"Hi there, Mike! To what do I owe the good fortune of seeing you again?"

"This transponder," Mike replied, "was placed at a sporting event by my arch-nemesis, Amnesio. He's a master of mind control! I'd like you to take a look at this device and see if you can tell me anything!"

"I'll see what I can do!" the professor replied.

For the next hour, Professor Hyperion dismantled the device with tools he had with him in his office, and he analyzed it. He took one device out of the transponder in particular and looked it over. "This is an alpha wave emitter, and only one company that I know of manufactures this variety! The Vizotech corporation! That's about all I can tell you!"

"Thanks a lot, professor! Moxie, use your smart phone to look that company up on the Internet!"

"Mike," the professor asked, "would it be okay if I kept this transponder unit? I'd like to run some tests on it!"

"Sure professor," Mike replied, "go ahead!"

Once Mike and Moxie were back in the Micromobile, Moxie did some research on her smart phone and found out the name and address of the president of the Vizotech corporation. "His name is Mason Eisenberg, and his home address is in Beverly Hills!" Moxie informed Mike. "I'll punch it into the GPS, and we can go there!"

"Mason Eisenberg is probably an alias for Amnesio!" Mike declared.

"Actually," said Moxie, “the name Mason and the first two letters of that last name form an anagram of the name Amnesio, so I think you're right!"

“You figured that out quick,” said Mike, “when I first met you, your parents weren’t kidding when they said you had a genius level intellect. You’re smarter than me!”

Mike drove the Micromobile toward Beverly Hills. When they found the address, it was a mansion surrounded by an eight foot high wall. "You're going to have to shrink," Moxie explained, "so I can toss you up onto the wall so you can investigate."

Mike keyed his neutrino dissimilator device, and shrunk down to one inch tall. Moxie picked him up, and tossed him up into the air, but she didn't throw him far enough, and he came back down and landed in her hands. On the second try Moxie succeeded, and Mike landed on top of the wall.

Mike walked around on the wall until he was pretty far into the backyard, which was huge. He hid behind the canopy of a large tree, unaware that a video camera was perched in one of the higher branches of the tree. Beside a swimming pool, Mike could see Amnesio's three teenage nieces. Mike keyed his wrist-radio and told Moxie, "This is definitely the place! I can see April, May and June by the swimming pool, but I don't see Amnesio!"

At that exact moment, Amnesio was in his control room, watching Mike on a video monitor. "So, you tracked me down, eh, Micromage?" Amnesio said to Mike's image on the video screen. "Well, you won't get far!"

April and May went out the back gate of the backyard in one direction, and June went out the back gate in the opposite direction, and walked around the block. When Moxie saw June approaching, she turned to go in the opposite direction, only to be intercepted by April and May.

"You weren't going anywhere, were you, Vector Girl?” April asked, as she grabbed Moxie’s left arm, while May grabbed her right wrist. Nobody saw them drag Moxie into the house. April returned outside and met up with June by the wall.

Meanwhile, on the wall, Mike had noticed that Amnesio's nieces had left out the back gate. He figured it was nothing to be concerned about. He didn't notice June and April walking around the wall toward his location, because he was standing near the edge of the inside of the backyard, and they were on the outside of the wall. June knelt down on the ground, and April used her back for a ladder, and reached the top of the wall. Mike turned around to see April’s hand reach for him, and found himself firmly enclosed within her fist.

“I want to swallow him now,” said April. “You got to swallow him last time!”

April lifted Mike above her mouth, but June interrupted her. “Make sure your dampening field is activated, so he can’t activate his neutrino assimilator and re-enlarge while he’s inside your belly!”

April flicked a switch on her utility belt, then swallowed Mike. When they returned inside the mansion, Amnesio asked where Mike was, and April informed him that she had just swallowed him.

“I need him! June, use a neural stimulator to force April to vomit him back up.”

June used her device as Amnesio ordered, and vomited into the sink. June picked Mike out of the puddle of vomit and rinsed him off, then clenched him in her fist.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the mansion, May had tied Moxie to a chair with her hands bound behind her back, then June duct taped Mike to Moxie’s right thigh. "It's interesting that you found me today," Amnesio told them. "I recently completed a new mind control device, the previous version didn’t work on people who had been miniaturized, and I need to test the newer version out on Micromage."

"Drop dead, creep!" Moxie yelled at him.

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” said Amnesio.

“King Lear Act 1, Scene 4,” said Mike.

“The only reason you were able to find me today is because I wished it,” said Amnesio. “I purposely left clues for you to track me down. When I first developed my mind control device, it apparently didn’t work on the brains of people who have been miniaturized. I’ve made some improvements recently, so I lured Micromage here to test it out. He will be completely mesmerized, and quite useless!”

Amnesio continued: “It's also interesting that I am in the process of relocating. All my furniture has been packed and shipped to my new location. I've already sold the land this mansion occupies to a new buyer! I informed them that I would take care of the demolition process, they aren’t interested in the mansion itself. Pity that they will have to clean up the charred corpses of a young teenage girl and a miniaturized self-proclaimed hero!"

Amnesio pushed a button on a remote control device in his hand, and heavy metal music began to emanate from speakers located throughout the room. "This is Dio's greatest hits album!" Amnesio informed Moxie.

"Tell someone who cares!" Moxie said defiantly.

"You should care," Amnesio continued, because I rigged a circuit connected to some C4 explosives that are keyed to go off when this CD player finishes the last song of this album! This entire mansion will be utterly destroyed, with you in it! It was nice knowing you!"

Amnesio exited the room, followed by his three female assistants. When they were gone, Moxie tried untying her hands from the rope that bound her. A recording of Amnesio's voice could be heard coming from speakers, saying: "Mike Roman, you are on hidden camera! This is all part of a new reality television series that you and Moxie will be starring in!"

"Mike, we've got to get out of here! Amnesio has some C4 that's set to go off when this album finishes the last song!"

Mike was strapped to Moxie’s thigh with duct tape. He replied, "You're crazy, Moxie! We're going to be on TV! This is all part of one of those reality shows!"

"No, Mike!" Moxie argued. "That's just what Amnesio wants you to think! You're mesmerized right now!"

"We have to do what Amnesio wants us to do!" Mike argued.

The voice from the speaker instructed Mike to stay where he was. Moxie realized she had to play along with Amnesio's game to defeat him. "Mike," Moxie said, "I was briefed on the specifics of the show! In order to win the one-million dollar prize, you have to go against what Amnesio is telling you to do!"

"Are you serious?" Mike asked.

“Yes! Unstrap yourself from the duct tape and work your way over my shoulder and untie my hands!”

Mike looked over and saw the rectangular block of C4 with wires hooked up to it. Without an engineering background, it would be impossible to unhook the C4 from the circuit without causing it to explode. Mike forced his way out of the duct tape, and in several moments, he was free. Moxie’s legs weren't tied to the chair she was sitting in.

"Mike," Moxie instructed, "climb over my shoulder and untie my hands from behind my back! Remember, you have to do this if you want to be the star of this new reality television show!"

Mike, at one inch tall, climbed over Moxie’s shoulder as she had instructed, and reached her hands. When Moxie felt Mike on her right hand, she felt Mike untied her from the chair.

"Good job, Micromage!" Moxie said triumphantly.

By the time the last Dio song played, Mike had untied Moxie from her ropes, and she had escaped with Mike to the front yard, just before the mansion exploded from the C4 explosives Amnesio had set to go off. The explosion was as large as Amnesio had warned them, but both Mike and Moxie were far enough away that they were completely safe.

Mike used his neutrino assimilator built into his gauntlet to return to normal size.

"The Teen Preference awards are tonight!" Moxie said. "We've got to head over there, to see if we can stop Amnesio before he carries out his plan!"

"There's no time to change!" Mike replied. "We'll have to go to the awards show dressed as Micromage & Vector-Girl!"

To Be Continued!

Chapter 7: Showdown at the Teen Preference Awards!

When Mike and Moxie pulled up at the front of the building where the Teen Preference Awards were being held, a valet took the Micromobile, and Mike and Moxie approached the entrance.

There was no problem finding a place for Moxie and Mike to sit, because people were still getting seated.

A random teenage girl sitting near Mike and Moxie said to Moxie: “I've seen your movie!" Is it true that Amnesio is a real person?"

"Yes!" Moxie replied angrily. "He's a real creep! He tried to kill me and Mike! The cool thing is, his mind control technology doesn't work on kids or teenagers! That fact has saved us on more than one occasion!"

"Is it true that he has assistants named after the months?” the girl asked.

"Yes!" Moxie replied. "There's three of them, they’re his nieces. Their names are April, May, and June. June is the one who helped mesmerize the participants at the bodybuilding competition earlier today! Amnesio is supposed to strike here tonight!"

As the celebrities who were presenting he awards took to the stage, they were surprised that Mike and Moxie had chosen to dress in their costumes, rather than a tuxedo for Mike and an appropriate dress for Moxie. What they didn't know was that Mike and Moxie were on a real life mission to defeat Amnesio; it wasn’t part of an act.

As Moxie sat talking with her female fan, Mike noticed someone up in the rafters installing a device near the ceiling. If it was Amnesio, it would've been easy for him to mesmerize the right people to allow him access to the building.

"Moxie, I think it's the real Amnesio!"

Mike and Moxie got up and ran to the back of the stage. There, up in the rafters, was one of Amnesio's nieces. She had just finished installing a mind-control device that Amnesio obviously planned on using on the audience. Before Mike could act, the device was activated!

Amnesio walked out to the center of the stage. People started clapping, thinking he was part of the show; they couldn’t discern the difference between the real Amnesio and the actor who had portrayed him in the recent film.

Amnesio quoted Shakespeare again, as was his custom: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.”

Mike was standing backstage with Moxie, and said, “As You Like it Act 2, Scene 7!”

“Mike,” said Moxie, “nobody cares if you know which play, act and scene from Shakespeare Amnesio is quoting!”

Amnesio Continued: “I am Amnesio, master of mind control!" his voice was amplified over a speaker system. "The teenagers of America may have voted, but I, Amnesio, have my own agenda of people I want to win tonight! Those of you who are in charge of the winning envelopes, bring them to my assistant April, and my other assistant will give you replacement envelopes! Amnesio commands you, and you must obey!"

Mike stood there mesmerized, but Moxie sprang into action. One of the young celebrities who was there as a presenter approached Moxie. “What’s going on? None of this was planned out!”

“Mike's mesmerized like all the other adults in here! It's up to me to prevent Amnesio from getting the winning envelopes! I'll climb up in the rafters and try to deactivate the mind control transponder!"

Moxie found a ladder backstage that she used to climb up to the mind control device. As she climbed, she was unaware of what transpired below.

April was already on the catwalk. May and June climbed the ladder to the catwalk to stop Moxie, thinking it would be a piece of cake to stop the young teenager. May and June grabbed Moxie from behind while Moxie’s attention was on April, who pulled out her ray gun.

“I’m going to make you allergic to peanuts!” April pulled out a peanut butter sandwich and waved it in Moxie’s face while aiming the ray gun at her. When she got close enough, Moxie kicked the ray gun out of April’s hand, and it went up in the air. April accidentally dropped the peanut butter sandwich onto the catwalk in a vain effort to catch the ray gun.

Moxie leaped into the air and kicked June in the stomach, landed, and delivered a round-house kick into May's abdomen. Moxie caught the ray gun as May and June tried to throw punches in Moxie's direction, but Moxie easily blocked all the punches, and delivered two for every punch she intercepted, hitting the girls in the face. They were knocked off balance and fell, grabbing onto the catwalk.

Moxie aimed the ray gun at April, and pulled the trigger. Moxie grabbed the sandwich and rubbed it in April’s face, and she started to go into anaphylactic shock.

Moxie had made her way to the mind control device, but couldn't figure out how to turn it off.

"Oh well," Moxie said to herself, "I guess I can just unstrap it and let it fall to the stage below!" Moxie began unfastening the straps.

Far below, Amnesio lost his temper. "She's just a girl! Overwhelm her!"

April started to fall from the catwalk, but Moxie grabbed onto her and sat her down on the catwalk. Moxie unstrapped the device from the rafter, and it fell directly onto Amnesio's head, knocking him out cold.

May and June climbed down the ladder and ran to his aid, but the mind control device ceased to function, and the adults in the audience began to snap out of it.

"We've got to get him and April to the car!" June informed May.

"Amnesio’s not going anywhere, except to jail!" Moxie shouted down at her opponents.

Moxie made her way back down the ladder, and met up with Mike near Amnesio's unconscious form. May and June had by that time decided to take off and leave Amnesio and April behind. When the police arrived, Amnesio was taken into custody, April was given medical attention, and the Teen Preference Awards got underway.

Duke arrived, the man from the future who had given Micromage his powers.

“You’ve done better than I expected, Moxie!” said Duke. “We were able to reverse engineer and de-activate the mind control device attached to the satellite and we backtracked to this event in our time cruiser. We couldn’t have done this without you, we can take it from here.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Moxie asked.

“Oh yes, of course!” said Duke. “Moxie, I’m activating your growing powers immediately, you’ve passed our test with flying colors!”

Duke pressed a sequence of buttons on a device on his wrist, and Moxie’s gauntlet on her left arm lit up with blue lighting, as it had been when she first tested out her growing powers when she and Mike had broken into the research facility several months before.

“Cool!” said Moxie. “I’ve got my growing powers back now!”

Duke and his assistants hauled Amnesio off the stage, taking the enigmatic mind control device with them. Mike and Moxie didn't win, but they received congratulations from the hosts for defeating Amnesio's evil plan, and the audience applauded them. Would there be more adventures? Considering that Amnesio's assistants had gotten away, it was possible that they hadn't heard the last of him; even now, Amnesio’s nieces were probably working on a plan to rescue him!

The End