Chapter 1:

James suffered a largely sleepless night. The life he knew and was used to was about to be uprooted in week, and he didn’t quite know how to cope with that. Staring at his ceiling was all he could come up with so far. 

Nonetheless, it was time to get up. He threw his covers off, exposing his skinny body and sensitive skin to the cool air in his bedroom. Mom sure did love the AC. To fight off the cold, he grabbed his brown robe and wrapped it around himself. Before heading to the bathroom to take a hot shower, he glanced at the daily calendar above his desk. 

June 16, 2042.

He ripped the page off and discarded it in the wastebin. It was June 17 now, as much as he hated to admit it. Only a week until he graduated from high school. James’s relatives had told him that the graduations of decades past were occasions of celebration and fun. Current graduation ceremonies, however, had an immediately profound impact on students and society at large.

After his shower, James got dressed in his school uniform. A pressed, white button-down shirt, a red tie that signified his school’s colors, and long tan khaki pants. The one thing he wouldn’t miss in a week was putting on these constricting articles of clothing. 

Downstairs, James was met with the sight of his mom cooking breakfast. Knowing graduation was coming up and that her only son was quite stressed, she’d been making him hearty breakfasts for the past week. Yesterday, it was chocolate chip pancakes. James, despite being 18, still had a sweet tooth. Today, it was an omelet with ham, spinach, mushrooms, and bacon. But he just wasn’t feeling it.

“What’s my last meal going to be, Mom? I’m thinking turkey legs, you know, while I can still hold one in my hand.”

His mom winced at his foul mood. “Honey, you’re talking about graduation like it’s the end. It’s not. You still have a full life to live.”

“Yeah, that’s easy for you to say, as a woman. I’m leaving for school. I’ll see you later.”

“James! Your breakfast! At least have a few bites before you…”

He’d already stormed out the front door. Before he got on his electric scooter, he glanced at his mom’s car. A slender piece of machinery. It was a coupe. A seat for her and a seat for him. Well, at least for now. It was fully electric and emitted no carbon dioxide, as was stipulated by the federal government. What most would’ve seen as a wonder of modern technology was just a symbol of his oppression. And he would’ve been more OK with his oppression if he was allowed to even drive the car. Boys didn’t get driver’s licenses anymore. It was done away with two decades ago. The only thing that made him feel slightly better was that supposedly, engineers were just months away from devising the perfect self-driving car. Women would eventually be prohibited from driving as well. But for now, James had to make do with his electric scooter. It went plenty fast, topping out at 20 miles per hour, and he would be at school with time to spare. 

Upon arriving at the private academy he spent most of his waking life in, he parked his scooter in the 20 by 20 fenced-in area with all the rest of the boys, while all the girls drove their cars into the real parking lot. He didn’t have many male friends. He found them miserable and boring. Girls, beyond being the objects of his desire, were far peppier and more enjoyable to be around. So, he went into the girl’s parking lot to go find his friends. 

He saw Arlia pull in with her convertible. This black-haired, olive-skinned, statuesque friend of James’s was practically drowning in Mommy’s money. Was she a bit spoiled? Of course, she was. But her wealth and status thankfully didn’t make her too much of a diva. Beyond being a fun person, the perks of being friends of Arlia were obvious. He got invited to lavish pool parties, fancy dinners, and wonderful vacations. So, that was nice. And beyond that, James had a bit of a crush on her.

The busty and blonde Juliana, another one of his friends, was in the passenger seat. She didn’t have the riches of Arlia, but scored high in other areas, mainly in the realm of social capital. She was a cheerleader and a gossip. Her loud voice carried wherever she went, and she always made people reveal scandalous secrets. Why? She was a beautiful girl with golden hair and a smile that knocked boys dead.

Mia, his third friend, was in the backseat. Her talent was her likeability. Everyone liked her. She was cute, harmless, yet surprisingly ambitious. While Arlia served class president and Juliana was the head of the cheer squad, Mia had her own way of getting everyone to respect her. She made cookies on a weekly basis and handed them out to the downtrodden, forgotten kids. She relentlessly volunteered at charities, and of course, she gave random massages. Sounds weird, but nobody complained when Mia gave massages. She killed people with kindness. 

“Hey, Jamesy! What’s up!” Arlia said as she stepped out of the car. He cocked his head to properly meet her gaze. She towered over him at 6’4”. At a somewhat diminutive 5’6”, he never quite got used to the height difference. His eye level was several inches below her shoulder.

“You,” he said.

“You know, that joke wasn’t funny the first time you said it ten years ago, James,” Juliana said, walking around the car to join Arlia in towering over him. Juliana was 6’0”, a little less than a head taller than him. But her massive breasts were more than a little bit on display, inches from his nose.

Mia hopped out of the back of the car, her curly black hair bouncing with the impact of her feet landing on the pavement. She was the shortest at just 5’0”, which of course, wouldn’t matter for long. “And besides,” Mia said, “In a week, you’ll fit in the palm of our hand.”

He hung his head for a few moments. “Do you really need to remind me this early in the morning? And lest you forget, according to the 18% doctrine, I could end up about a foot tall.”

The 18% doctrine was passed in 2027. The law came out of a moderate administration that wanted to offer an olive branch to adult men, who in the years prior valiantly had themselves shrunk down to an average of three inches tall to avert the incoming climate change catastrophe. 

Just a year later, with around 40% of the entire American population made tiny, the country’s emissions went down enough to begin to reverse the worst of climate change. The 18% doctrine was meant as a middle ground, offering a more traditional life to boys who proved their worth in academics, sports, and giving back to the community through service. The idea was, if a 5’9” man (the average height of an untampered American male) were reduced to 18% of his height, he would be around a foot tall. Female lawmakers arbitrarily deemed a foot to be a height that would afford deserving men some dignity while also preserving the male sacrifice that saved the planet. 

Male critics at the time viewed the law as a double-edged sword. Yes, it gave men the opportunity to be bigger than the standard three inches, but before the 18% doctrine, there was no universal law mandating that males be shrunk when they turn 18 or graduate from high school. If passed, all American men would have to submit to shrinkage. 

Predictably, with nearly an all-female Congress and a female president, the 18% doctrine passed easily. From 2027 on, males were shrunk in their 18th year. 

But James’s friends were skeptical that the 18% number would apply to him.

“Keep dreamin’ buster. Only eagle scouts and star athletes keep 18% of their height. You’re neither. And pretending you don’t like it when we tease you about your size is silly. Because we all know you love it!” Juliana laughed, wrapping her arm affectionately around James’s neck, pressing his head into the side of her boob.

“Can you stop?! Jeez!” he said, trying to wriggle out of her shockingly tight hold.

“Shouldn’t a big, strong man like yourself be able to get out of a hold like that?” Arlia mocked, bending down and booping him on the nose. 

“Can you just let him go, for god’s sake?” Mia finally intervened. “He’s had enough.”

“Fine,” Juliana whined, releasing her grip on him. James’s face was red from the struggle. He had a hard time being nonchalant about it.

“You know what, I’ll be honest,” he said. “18% is probably out of reach for me. Maybe 13%?”

“We shall see,” Arlia said with a knowing look. Arlia, being the class president, had intimate knowledge of how small the boys at our school would end up. But it seemed that she was refusing to tell him how small he’d end up.

As James and his group of friends walked up to the school they’d called home since the sixth grade, they saw a protest being carried out by four of the shortest guys in the senior class. Their ringleader, a guy named Calvin, stood at just 4’10”. They held a banner that read “18% doctrine unfair to short men.” 

James certainly understood where these guys were coming from, though they had it a lot worse. None of the protesters were taller than 5’2”. And Calvin had the potential of ending up at around two inches tall if his grades weren’t up to par. 

Part of James wanted to go join Calvin and his merry band of dwarves to go shout down the unfair 18% doctrine. But that desire was quickly dashed when Principal Hannah Driscoll marched up to the already tiny men and tore their banner to pieces. 

“Clean this up and come to my office when you’re done. We have much to discuss,” she said with a smirk. If she was nothing else, Principal Driscoll was a black-haired, silver-tongued fox. If she marched up to you in her classic pencil skirt, four-inch heels and stood over you with her hands on her hips, it was fair to say that you were in deep shit. 

“Damn! Those morons are in for it!” Juliana squealed, “What do you think’ll happen to them? Oh my god, do you think the principal will make them all two inchers?!”

“Just for holding a sign? I hope not,” James said. 

“Honestly, what’s the difference between two inches and three inches? I know those boys. They don’t have a stellar GPA or do anything noteworthy. I heard guys like them usually get a 95% height reduction,” Arlia said.

He bristled at that comment, and Arlia immediately pounced. 

“Did that offend you, soon-to-be-little-one?” she asked. 

He punched her in the shoulder, though him having to reach upwards only emphasized how much taller she was. And how much taller she would soon be. How much taller all women would be.

“Ow!” Arlia yelped. “Why did you do that?!”

“You’re rubbing it in! Can you just chill?!”

“Listen, it’s all in good fun. Even though you’ll be small, you’re meant for big things too, James,” Mia said, rubbing his back and shoulders in an attempt to calm him down. He pulled away, knocking her hands off him. Her eyes welled up at the rejection of her touch, but he didn’t care. He was pissed off. 

“Yeah, it’s all in good fun for you three, because after graduation, nothing changes for you. You just get to go on living normal lives, while I get reduced to the size of an action figure, if I’m lucky. Buzz off, alright. I’ll see you at lunch. For now, I need a break from all of you.”

As he stormed away from his usually trusty gal pals, he heard Juliana say, “I think we might’ve pushed him too far.” 

Then Mia, who was amid crying, yelped, “You think?!”

He headed off to his first period class without a regard for his friends, not even Mia, who he caused to cry. It was history class. Luckily, Arlia, Juliana and Mia were not his class. Today’s lecture was about recent American history. Fitting, since it was almost the end of the year. Mrs. Kelly, his teacher, covered everything from the American Revolution, the Great Depression, and now she was just starting to get into the history of the 2020s. 

“So, Brian,” Mrs. Kelly called on one of the boys in the class, “List some people instrumental in the first wave of shrinking.”

Brian was generally a bit of a spaz. He didn’t pay much attention in class, which was exactly why he got called on. Predictably, he sputtered out an incoherent answer. And even more predictably, little miss class pet Victoria was raising her hand. James resisted the urge to bang his head on the desk. 

“Why don’t you raise both hands?” James muttered. 

A few guys chuckled at his comment, but it didn’t take Victoria long to rip his head off. 

“What did you say?” she turned around, her blonde hair whipping around her neck. 

“I didn’t say a word,” James responded, raising both his arms in a show of faux innocence. He kept eye contact too, which was getting harder and harder these days. 

“You know, you’re an idiot,” Victoria said, “You are literally going to be the size of my finger in a few days. It’s probably best that you don’t go antagonizing girls.”

He cleared his throat and put his hands down. Looking away from her, he picked up his pen and pretended to write some notes. 

“Oh, nothing to say now, huh? Little coward,” she said. 

“Victoria, enough,” Mrs. Kelly said half-heartedly, “Let’s get this class back on track. Do you happen to know the answer?” 

“Of course, Mrs. Kelly!” she yipped, breaking her evil eyes stare at James and facing front, “Climate activists and several members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus were the first to propose shrinking the human population. It was to reduce the carbon footprint and reverse climate change, and it worked!”

“Very good! See Brian, if you studied more, you could have given that answer just like Victoria. Carly, what created the male-only precedent when it came to shrinking?”

Brian sheepishly shifted down further into his seat, while Carly prepared to answer the next question. She was not as eager as Victoria, but she knew her stuff. Unlike Brian. 

Carly began, “Well, men were the first to shrink for one main reason. Dozens of studies concluded that shrunken female rats could not properly give birth. Every time, it was a stillbirth. But a shrunken male rat could impregnate a full-sized female rat, and 99% of the time, the baby was born completely fine. So, to maximize our effort to stop climate change, it was deemed vital that men be shrunk and vital that women stay full sized so humanity wouldn’t go extinct.”

Victoria was raising her hand again. It was clear she had something to add. James rolled his eyes. 

“Yes, Victoria?” Mrs. Kelly called on her prized pupil.

“And don’t forget the war in China! It’s a ground conflict that requires able bodies that can carry a rifle, something men stopped being able to do twenty years ago.”

“Yes, you’re correct to add that point. The war against China broke out for many reasons. Their theft of intellectual property, their expansion into the Middle East, and their human rights violations. And the war, which broke out after men began shrinking, necessitated fighters. Not just on the ground, but in the sky and in the water. Even jobs operating military machinery and tech became impossible for three-inch-tall men. The ongoing nature of the conflict has put an extra pressure on the government to keep women full-sized.”

James sat at his desk, desperately eyeing the clock. He was tired of listening to all these women justify why he had to shrink, and why they had to stay big. And it was only first period. In every subject, there were discussions about the place of men and women in society. 

In English, he and his classmates had a whole unit on post-Shrink fiction. The favorite of the English department was a novel called “Arranged,” where a shrunken man is betrothed to a girl he barely knows by his mother. This kind of thing was beginning to become more commonplace since men after graduation weren’t in the position to go pick up women at bars or go out on dates. They’d be crushed before they even got off the sidewalk. In his English class’s discussion of “Arranged,” James had to listen to the ramblings of girls extolling the virtue of the mother for setting the shrunken man up with the perfect girl. 

In science, there was a month-long unit studying the shrinking process. His teacher called it a “technological marvel.” The class even went down to the shrinking lab several times to see the machines that would eventually shrink all the boys in school. Those days were rife with girls teasing boys about how small they’d end up. Even Juliana poked fun at him while they were in the lab.

“Hey,” she’d said, tapping on his shoulder, “How small do you think you’ll be?”

“I don’t know, 10 inches?”

“What’s your GPA?”

“3.2,” he had whispered back.

“You’ll be six inches tall if you’re lucky,” she had said, rubbing my hair and leaning her arms on my shoulders.

In math, it was the word problems. Those damn word problems his teacher wrote on the board made all the girls giggle and the boys groan. A classic example was:

‘If a man who’s 5’10” and three quarters is shrunk by 88%, how tall is he?’

Another frequently used test question went something like this:

‘How many three-inch shrunken men would it take to equal the weight of the average woman?’

The answer for that one was burnt into James’s mind. The average three-inch-tall man weighed far less than a pound, which meant that a whopping 615 of them would equal the same weight as the average woman. The average woman now weighed 615 times the average man. 

But eventually, the bell rang, shaking James out of his painful reverie. And four more periods went by just as slowly as the first one before it was lunch time. Still not quite over his friends mocking him this morning, he lingered by his locker for a few minutes, pretending to be digging around for something. And just as he closed his locker door, Calvin, the guy who led the unsuccessful protest, was standing right behind it.

“What’s up, man?” James asked.

“What do you think?! The principal said that all of us are going to be two-inchers after graduation. And then when she said to us, ‘if you tell me who organized this abomination, I’ll let rest of you be four inches tall,’ my so-called friends immediately ratted on me. So now, because of the rats I used to call my friends, I’m going to be two inches tall, while the rest of them will be double my height!”

Unfortunately, the government gave schools, especially private schools, carte blanche to shrink male students however they saw fit. That meant boys were often on their best behavior. Except for Calvin and his now ex-friends. 

“Jeez, that’s so fucked up man. All for a little stunt that hurt nobody,” James scoffed. 

“Yeah, well, that’s the thing. I think it’s time to do a stunt that will hurt,” Calvin said, upping the ante.

James squinted and cocked his head. He wasn’t quite sure he liked what Calvin was insinuating. 

“Here’s my idea,” the shorter man said in a hushed voice, “We go into the shrinking lab at the school and destroy the machines.”

“You’re kidding! If the principal catches you, she’ll make you an incher. Maybe even smaller!”

“Who cares? What have I got to lose? I’m already going to be a two-incher. What’s another inch off my height, huh? And besides, I won’t get caught, because I’ll sneak in at night, and I’ll have the key to the shrinking lab.”

“Yeah? How? Only two people have that key,” James said.

“Exactly. The principal and your leggy friend Arlia.”

Calvin was right. Since Arlia was class president, she had a key to that room. It was policy that the class president operates the shrinking machines on the boys. 

“Don’t ask me what I think you’re going to ask me,” James said.

“You are friends with her somehow. Just swipe the key, give it to me and that’ll be the end of your involvement. Your pansy ass doesn’t actually have to take an axe to the machine.”

“Calvin, she wears the key around her neck. Even if I wanted to get it, it’d be impossible. And even if I somehow managed to get the key from her without her noticing, she’d eventually realize it was stolen. And it would immediately get traced back to me. So, no. Figure this out on your own.”

As James walked past Calvin and toward the lunchroom, Calvin said, “I have a feeling you’ll change your mind.”

“Why’s that?” James briefly turned back; his curiosity piqued after hearing this bold prediction.

“Just a hunch.”

James strolled into the lunchroom, trying to spot his friends. He was ready to reconcile with them. Before he found them, he noticed something that he had never noticed before. Boys and their girlfriends were discussing living arrangements after the shrinking. He saw girls showing boys pictures of dollhouses on their phones. 

“Just think about it, Victor!” he heard one girl say, “You can stay in this cute little house! My mom already gave me permission! Isn’t that great! You’d have your own space for the whole day, and then when I come from work, I could take you out and have fun with you. Doesn’t that sound great?!”

Victor nodded. That was all men could do nowadays. Nod away for the rest of their lives. 

Trying to shake what he heard and saw out of his mind, James sat down next to Mia. Arlia and Juliana were across from them. He went to open his mouth, but Arlia spoke first. 

“James, I’m sorry. I should be more sensitive around you. Clearly, I offended you, and I really just meant it as a joke.”

As far as apologies were concerned, Arlia’s was pretty crappy, but he was ready to forgive her anyway. How could she know what it was like to be a boy, a week away from getting shrunk? She couldn’t. 

“It’s alright,” he said. “We’re cool.”

Arlia reached out with one of her long arms and scrunched his cheek. She shot him a warm, genuine smile. Her touching him like this was a better apology than what she actually said. 

“OK, so changing the subject,” Juliana interjected, “I think it’s time to cut you in on a little opportunity, Jamesy.”

“Wait, Juliana, I don’t think—” Mia tried to say.

“Wanna bet on how small you’re gonna get?!” Juliana blurted out.

James, perplexed and angry, didn’t say anything. 

“Why? Why would you tell him about this?” Arlia asked Juliana.

“Because he’s shrinking anyway, so he might as well make some money on the way down to six inches! Or maybe three inches? I bet you were going to be four inches tall.”

As the girls bickered, he gathered the will to speak. It was time to ascertain how rotten to the core the girls of this school were. 

“Are you telling me that there’s an illegal gambling racket of girls betting on how small the guys end up? Is that what you’re telling me?”

Their eyes all widened, clearly not wanting to put the truth into words. But with their fearful expressions, they already told him everything he needed to know. Beyond this new revelation, he already knew that Arlia had concrete knowledge of how small most guys would end up. In the weeks leading up to graduation, boys had been going up to her asking how much they would be shrunk. Yet another perk of being class president.

“Arlia, please tell me you’re not feeding people insider information.”

“Listen, I’m only helping Juliana and Mia. They’re my best friends. And the reason I’m doing it is to raise money for your living quarters after you’re shrunk. I know we haven’t talked about it yet, but we need to. Those little houses cost a lot of money, especially when you add plumbing, electricity, and a thermostat.”

His mom wasn’t a rich woman, and he was only at this private academy on scholarship. His mom’s plans for his living situation once he was tiny was a shelf. Until she could afford one of the nicer tiny houses. So, he had to admit, what Arlia was suggesting was tempting. A nice house all to himself right after he shrunk; it was the best-case scenario.

But betting on shrinking men was illegal. And they knew that. They could go to prison for years, and he wasn’t willing to lose his three best friends over something this stupid. 

“You need to stop this, now,” he said. “If you get caught, it doesn’t matter how much money you make toward my tiny house. You’ll get hauled off in handcuffs. Besides, Arlia, you’re rich. If you really want to get me this amazing house, couldn’t you just—”

“Ask for the money?” she finished my statement. “Yeah, then you’d just see it as a handout from my rich family.”

“Better a legal handout than an illegal scheme to profit off of shrinking men!” he argued.

“We can’t stop now, dude,” Juliana said. “If we see this through, we’ll have more than enough to pay for your tiny house. We could even buy you some tiny electronics. A computer, a smartphone, everything you need.” 

“Holy shit, you don’t get it! If the whole school is betting on this, the principal will find out. Don’t you understand that? And it won’t take very long for it to be traced back to you. Give people back their money and scrap this plan entirely.”

“Since when do you give us orders, James?” Arlia leaned down close to me. 

He didn’t give any ground, and he wasn’t going to let this go. “Right around when you told me about the dumbest plan in the history of dumb plans.”

She slapped him right across the face. The sound was deafening, and it echoed all around the lunchroom. Before they knew it, everyone was looking at their table. James stood up, rubbed his cheek, and said, “If you don’t stop, I’ll make you stop.”

He walked out of the lunchroom, knowing everyone’s eyes were on him. They had to be wondering what he meant by what he said. 

He walked the halls, looking for someone. He found who he was looking for sitting on the stairs eating his packed lunch, alone.

“Calvin, I’ve reconsidered. Let’s wreak some havoc.”

“Wow, that was quick,” Calvin said, “Glad to have you on board. Meet me at my house tonight at 7. We’ll go over the plan there.”