"Does it have something to do with the Earthquake ya reckon?"

"Well I certainly ain't seen any crazy Earthquakes like this here before in my 55 years, I also ain't ever seen a spaceship before. Two super rare events bound to be connected to summit."

The farmers looked up at the colossal black "spaceship", made of a bumpy material on the outsides and in a gigantic circle, it stretches out into the distance before turning to the left with another large section, shaped like a corner.

"They prolly diggin' into the earth, stealin' our goods n stuff. Y'know I saw a documentary one time, an expert said that any alien species that comes here from another planet and their planet isn't plentiful like ours, they are gonna want a piece of ours y'know what I'm saying?"

"What part do ya reckon we're looking at?"

"Awh well I've researched into alien technology myself" he points towards the giant hollow circle that leads into the depths. "This here's the entrance, it's like a- a- a mechanical door that folds into itself you see. Into the far depths behind it's like the rest of the ship, that's gotta be where operations are, the door size implies that the aliens must be at least 40 metres tall."

"40 metres?? goddamn."

"Tell me about it."

One of the men turns to the other with a smirk on his face whilst nodding.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Hell yeah, I'll get the ladder." he turns around heading for his truck. "I ain't gonna live my life without seeing no aliens."

Meanwhile...

"What in the fuck is going on?!" Ashley shouted, visibly horrified at the thoughts entering her mind as she unravelled this mystery slowly in her head, backtracking over everything that occurred over the last hour. Numerous cars below were now driving towards her feet, too mortified to even move and the fear of causing more damage to the very much intelligence and alive beings below. She desperately wanted them to turn and drive away like they did earlier, searching for a clue that she was crazy and this wasn't happening.

"Stop moving!" Ashley held her hands out whilst shouting out her orders to the cars approaching her below. The cars did as instructed some slower than others, some not at all, but so many stopped at once that she was certain it was a lack of awareness from the others, if her theory was correct and they were real.

"Okay. If you consider yourself to be real & alive, continue driving." There was a silent pause in the room after she finished her sentence, none of the cars moved. Her blank expression anticipating her nightmare to be over as the seconds ticked ahead, making it more likely that she was wrong. But before the seconds could tick any further, all the stopped cars continued moving forwards within the same 4-second period.

"Please stop again." Ashley continued her investigation and orders. She lifts her wrist and reads the time. 2:06pm. "If the time is currently 6pm, drive forwards." None of the cars budged, in her head she cried for them to move, whatever it was, whether it was sound detection or what, just some anything so she could erase her guilt instantly. Absolutely no movement from the involved cars. She sighed and her face turned red from the guilt and stress as she begin to finalize her investigation. "If the time is roughl 2:07pm, drive forwards." on command, they began to move.

"Oh fuck me, I've gotta- I've gotta get out of here." She took a step backwards in her freak out, crushed two buildings including her heel landing on top of two cars involved in the communication. She looked down at her foot. "Oh shit! I'm sorry- I didn't. Oh my god." Unable to stay calm, she was unable to move without damaging the city. "I'm going to speak to the owner of the suite, this isn't okay. I'm so sorry this happened. I'll try to avoid damaging anything on my way out. Please avoid me. I'm so sorry." she announced to the tens of thousands remaining below.

Ashley began tip-toeing around the inner city area in the middle of the room grabbing her shoes and heading in the direction of the door. Mostly managing to avoid further destruction to the tiny civilization below, on her travels to the door, her eyes uncovered more and more details that she cursed herself for not noticing, overloading her mind and causing further mental panic. Thinking about the things she'd done replaying it in her head, throwing her shoes behind her, pressing cars between her finger tips, she even removed her footwear and socks and walked over them like they were nothing. Relieved as she made it to the green fields on the outskirts, she would certainly be able to avoid human life here as she resumed pressing her feet flat instead of tip-toeing around.

"Goddamn. I'll tell you what, it's way bigger when you standin' in it."

"You can say that again, Billy. Let's go see something extraordinary, their base of operations should be all the way at the back." the man flicks his torch on, lighting only the floor and not much else as this colossal circular corridor they were traversing was incredibly out of range for such a puny light source. It did however grant them enough floor lighting to trek through the corridor without falling.

They continued forward for approximately two minutes before bumping straight into a cushioned wall, both clearly surprised by the fact that they had reached the end already and having seen nothing on the way there. 

"What the hell? How are we finished already, John?" Billy inquired John in an angry & disappointed tone.

"We can't be at the end already, we ain't even seen goddamn shit!" John exclaimed

"Nothin' but darkness all the way through, what kinda aliens are these?"

The "aliens" gave them no time to solve the mystery of their spaceship as they began to feel shaking, both men panicking believing the ship to be taking off, bewildered as the door hadn't even shut. Not wanting to leave their home planet behind they started to turn around and get moving, but not long before the aliens presented themselves to them. Two gigantic fingers gripping the door frame and tipping the entire ship over, the men screamed as their backs plummeted onto the cushioned wall which now had become a floor as the ship settled upright. Both men stared into what now was the sky, lights in the sky not only lighting up their bodies but also the floor beneath them, John stood up and read the marking on the cushion floor.

It read "10 US"

"What in gods name is going on here?"

"John..." Billy said whilst tapping his friends shoulder without breaking focus from above.

The light vanished from both men and the floor around them, instead becoming encompassed in a dark shadow, John looked up to see where Billy's attention was being drawn to and what was causing the blackout. They saw what appeared to be the bottom of a human foot.

Billy took off running in the opposite direction as the building-wide foot came hurtling inside the "spaceship", he was sprinting straight into darkness without John's torch. He never looked back once whilst running for safety, his ears filled with the droning noises of the foot rubbing against the sides of the spaceship entrance, now known to them as a giant shoe. 

"Just keep running, John. Don't think about anything else." he shouted through his frantic breath whilst looking to his left and right, but he was nowhere to be seen, stopping in his tracks to survey behind him. In the far distance that he had covered already he saw John standing in the same spot above the engraving, staring up at the object descending upon him causing the shadow around him to get darker and darker, Billy thought he was out of his goddamn mind and he was right, he was out of his mind, he wasn't in the right headspace. John was utterly shocked by this discovery, there was no fight or flight response from his body, in the face of impending doom and an impossible force the human mind develops a third option; fight, flight or "fuck this shit."

Billy could only watch in horror as the cushioned flesh on the ball of the foot collided with the heel area of the insole, landing on top of John and ending his life immediately, turning his body into a mangled mess, the leather insole screeched as it was stretched by the weight above. But as quickly as the foot landed it just as quickly began pressing forwards, scraping the body underneath into a smear as it progressed towards it's intended resting place, the black nails hunting him like a shark, intending to ram him like a wrecking ball hitting an ant.

Billy wasted no time continuing his monumental sprint towards the tip of the shoe, the leather creaking noises speedily approaching him from behind giving him updates on his inevitable fate.

Just as they were reaching overwhelming noise levels Billy hit a bump on the leather floor, tripping and crayoning his face across the floor, hastily rolling onto his back to see the sole steamrolling over the surface towards his body, he screamed as he held his hands up.

But nothing happened, he opened his eyes to see that his hands were making contact with the foot, the massive ridges across the padding of the foot inches from his face. Looking above he saw and heard the giant toes creaking as they wiggled, astounded that he could hear such a miniscule movement so loudly, as if it even had a sound. Shakingly in a panic he began pushing himself backwards with his arms and legs whilst still sitting down, frantically attempting to distance himself from the foot before banging his head on something. Uncovering that he had reached the end of the shoe, the tip where the foot couldn't quite reach due to it's shape and tightness. Billy felt great relief in his life not being ended in such a painful and gruesome fashion like his friend, only for his peace to be shattered by the sound of a ridiculously loud zip being pulled upwards. The foot rose slightly into the air lifting the entire shoe, suddenly moving a 2mm man into the air at extreme speeds causing him to hit the ceiling, the foot landed causing him to face plant onto the floor whilst hearing crashing noises outside the boot wall. Darting his eyes forward he could see a flap, this flap was the tip of the insole bending slightly forwards as it ended and the leather walls began in the shoe.

He took this opportunity and ran for it, diving inside and hanging onto the flap as if it were a safety bar and securing himself deeper into it so that it could hold his body in place, the shoe rose once again seeing the foot lift slightly and crash forwards, the toes colliding with the floor slightly squishing themselves with the entire weight of this being above. His eyes rolled as he began to pass out from the extremely intense Gs he was being exposed to. Passing out indefinitely.

Ashley slipped her ankle boots back on with haste, not wanting to feel any of the stomps on the town any longer, quickly wanting to seperate her foot from the floor, she placed her foot into the shoe on the heel before pressing it forwards into the boot and lifting the zip. She began walking towards the door again, rising up to the platform and exiting the room.

Recalling earlier the room the man went into and following the same path, entering the room and slamming the door behind her. She stared towards a fancy desk with a lady in a labcoat lifting her head from her papers, dropping her pencil next to them, looking intrigued by Ashley's prescence.

"Can I help you, miss?"

"Did it ever occur to you to mention to your customers, these innocent and unaware people that the cloned cities include tiny people, or better yet that they were concious and intelligent or even even better than that, that they were quite literally cloned versions of the exact city we live in?"

The lady in the labcoat squinted her eyes into daggers, as if challenging Ashley to a staring competition. Pausing briefly for about 10 seconds.

"Oh what, did you want a medal? Are you going to tell me next that farms shouldn't be killing animals, yet they do it anyway? you're vegan right? you dislike peoples feelings being hurt and any inkling of disagreement when things are ran not to your liking." - "You see the reason I know these things is because you're not the first to come in here and tell me what's what and you certainly won't be the last, so if you would kindly take my word for it that this will go no further even if you try and boycott my business." The labcoat lady stared at Ashley expressionless, Ashley didn't doubt for a second that this lady was serious about hearing this quite a few times.

"Why do you do this? Do they feel pain?"

"Yes"

"How concious are they?"

"Very, entirely. Just like me or you. In fact they are quite literally me and you."

"Why can't you just make fake people, like robotics."

"Listen girlie, my name is Suzanne C. Anderson and I've been working on this project for the better part of the last 6 years of my life, ever since I finished my degree. I assure you that any of the ideas flowing through your pretty little head have already went through mine, and any great ideas you have are already disproven. Robotics is nowhere near such a level that we could fit advanced movement and AI into such a miniscule space."

"You don't need real people, the man said to me during the demo that it was all about the destruction mechanics in the buildings." Ashley shouted at the woman.

"That's just what we tell you, girlie. People aren't here to destroy bricks that resemble buildings, they are here to destroy their workplaces, crush their friends that they secretly hate or pledge their hatred to the countryside by messing up a bunch of fields. Whatever it is they get up to or want, they do it here."

"Don't you have any morals or feelings?" Ashley was adamant that she was correct as she spoke, how could anyone do these things and genuinely believe it was okay?

"Maybe I'd consider it for real people, not tiny stupid clones who think they matter. If you'd kindly leave me be, I've got lots to finish today." Suzanne placed her glasses onto her face and flicked her hand in an upwards motion, as if trying to shoo off a dog, as if she wouldn't acknowledge the difference between a pet and Ashley. 

Ashley bundled her hands up into fists as she uttered- "I won't let you do this."

Suzanne looked up, removing her glasses and sighing deeply. - "Listen, I understand you, I really do. I can see that you are upset and you know what, I need an excuse to ignore these contracts so let's take a walk." Suzanne stood up from her black leather office chair and approached Ashley, taking her by the shoulder and guiding her out the room.

"You're currently in a session, this chamber was it? Nobody is in it so I'll assume it's yours." Suzanne asked her politely

"Yes, it's mine."

"Okay, let's go in."

Both of the women entered the room. Suzanne did a fast survey of the destruction in the room trying to uncover what has been going on.

"Wooooww, see, you've really enjoyed our service today, that was until you realized we use tiny irrelevant clones to populate our destruction zones, right? So. It was enjoyable, you admit that much. The issue is that you can't shake this feeling, this deep desire to do good, to make others feel like they matter, and that's all great. However what's important is that we remember who deserves it and who doesn't." Suzanne stepped down into the destruction zone. Ashley held her arms out in a shocked manner.

"Hey! Don't-" before she could finish Suzanne began stepping lightly through the green fields on the outskirts in her black stilettos.

"Here's the thing, girlie. Look at this room, look at all the clones you've destroyed, you've ripped & teared and done some serious damage. BUT.. nobody is dead. There is no harm done. We don't get strung up on the ants we step on when we're going to work or the spiders we deliberately kill. The reason for that is because they simply do not impact our real world, their impact to everything is so... miniscule, that we know killing them doesn't matter in the slightest. Let me give you an example." Suzanne approached a house in the countryside. Ashley's face had sorrow written all over it.

"This here is Drury Lane, the Miller family live here, five of them to be precise. They have spent the last three years saving up money in order to move away from this town, they want to move somewhere new and more populated. Nice right? Well-" Suzanne lifted her black stiletto into the air and dropped it just as quickly.

Ashley shouted "NOOO" before Suzanne planted her massive shoe straight through the house, her shoe sole pressing deep into the dirt of the field, sinking slightly, burying the rubble and people deep underneath.

"You- you killed them."

"Nope, no, no, no. You see, I didn't kill them, because if you check their social medias in two weeks you will see Debra Miller posting just how much she loves her new forever home, because she is NOT dead. Her tiny clone has been removed. That is all. There are no real world implications or repercussions, therefore they are as important as ants. You see life truly does go on, this down here- this is not life, It's a facade. Contrary to what Descartes says, just because you think, doesn't mean you are." Suzanne said this as she looked down lifting her shoe and kicking downwards as if to kick the dirt off her shoe.

"But making them believe they are the real versions of themselves, what's the good in that?" Ashley said trying to find more points to change this womans mind.

"Truthfully, there's no way for us to realistically simulate their personalities without making them think they are real, it's like having an AI without all the effort of actually programming it. But that just makes it more fun for our customers. You see humans have the features they do for a reason, we feel pain so that we avoid it, increasing our odds of survival. You think you are special and have made this amazing discovery but you are not because approximately 5% of our customers realize that we have tiny clones but do you want to know why so few complain?" Suzanne slowly steps forwards savouring the moment.

"It's because they enjoy it." She said as she stared at Ashley with an eerie fake corporate smile.

"Anyways, I must return to my ever important work, normally I don't do this but to be frank, your do-goody attitude was setting me off quite a bit so I thought I'd do you a favour and give you a personal chat from the big boss herself. Do enjoy the rest of your session. Oh and girlie?" Ashley looked away from the ground and towards Suzanne who wanted her attention.

"Try not to think about it too much, it'll just make it harder. Also don't forget these" Suzanne threw two grey bottomed white socks at Ashley who caught them in mid-air, Suzannes smile grew wider and thus colder. Deliberately doing that to remind Ashley about what she'd already done to the city below. Suzanne leaves the room shutting the door behind her, Ashley's arms droop to her side in defeat, still holding her socks, she inspects them with sadness in her eyes, noticing the red stains and quickly throwing them at the ground in shock.

After sitting in her sorrows on the floor of the platform, staring into the city, her sorrow passes and the cogs in her head begin to turn. 

"You guys are coming with me." she says before standing up with her hands on her hips.