My arm glowed blue up until the police flashlights hit the room, the direct light cancelled the blue glow, and the star system went dark.

Dazzled by the skipping flashlight beams, I ran across the floor, trying to avoid the rapid passage of their massive shiny shoes as they congregated around Rodney’s body. As they radioed in, one of them noticed me and yelled.

The long beams of flashlights were like the pursuit of helicopters. Suddenly cops were diving for me; one of them pinched my chest and I was being winched up into the air. I gripped the scrap of black fabric around my waist like it was the only thing keeping me alive.

A voice rumbled my eardrums:

“Hey, look at this – he’s tiny!”

Zamira said she’d never seen a reduced person before. The Natural cops had never conceived of a reduced person. Reduced Supers went to Gamma General to be resized, and Reduced Naturals were ‘disappeared.’ I was an anomaly; to Supers, ‘strange’, to Naturals, a complete alien.

A police flashlight trained on my face like a stadium floodlamp.

“Put me down!” I yelled, clenching my eyes shut and thrashing against the muscular fingers that bound up my limbs. I had no hope of escaping when even the man’s pinky was thicker than my arms.

A pair of softer hands encircled my torso and the flashlight beam left my eyes.

“Okay, easy there, little guy,” a feminine voice came from above my head. It was a young female cop.

While the others hung back in the warehouse, taping off the scene, I was slipped into her pants pocket, where all was mercifully dark. A couple of empty gum wrappers crinkled around my feet.

It felt like being inside an upright sleeping bag that hugged her thigh. In the dark, the stars on my arm glowed blue again. Then something whumped down and patted my body from outside. It was the cop’s hand, checking I was secure. I resented being treated like her wallet or phone.

For a long time I was rocked and slammed upon the meat of her thigh, like a tiny basketball being dribbled in time with her steps. Her powerful walk took us away from the warehouse and back through the park. There was a sick plunging sensation every time her foot dropped to the ground, and sent a tremor through my entire body as it landed. I shifted and braced myself against every bumping footstep, never getting used to it.

From outside, the theme park rides had been powered down and the crowds had dissipated. Some bone-shaking footsteps later, insects chirped and car engines grumbled past, which meant we had reached the vicinity of the parking lot. I wondered vaguely if Summer had returned the Academy car.

“What do you say I get you out of here?” the cop said, getting off her phone and giving the outer pocket another gentle pat which swept over my face, chest and genitals. 

She pulled open the door of her squad car, and made a hair-raising transition from standing to sitting, pulling me onto my back and downwards sharply before bouncing against her hip. In sitting position, her tight pants tightened even more around her waist, squashing me against her muscular thigh, fixing me in place sideways.

Then the world seemed to whirl into motion as the car ran. Every crack in the road recoiled through my spine. I swallowed back my car sickness. Maybe I was being rescued but it felt like kidnap.

A call buzzed over the radio and she explained the situation to someone, and then someone else; a dispatcher and then another officer. Her voice calmed me somewhat. 

"Excuse me!" I called, remembering suddenly. "Lucy reduced a bunch of people and is keeping them inside a locket. She might be still wearing it."

The officer paused and then dialed the Hero Custody Center Lucy had been taken to for processing. She asked me some questions and relayed what I said to them.

The car stopped in a street right on Hammerhead’s border.  A wide glittering black river spanned to the lit skyline of the neighboring city, the more 'Super friendly', Ankylorhiza. That was where Zamira lived; she might have already flown back to her Fortress of Investigation, the 'Satellite Park' building to file a Hero incident report.  I knew the process; I'd written hundreds of practice Hero reports at the Academy. Still, no amount of reporting ever prepared me for being the subject of one. 

Once again, my body was bumped and pushed by the officer's fingertips to check where I was. Then her hand ventured in to fish me out, two of her probing fingertips accidentally bumped my head as they slid down to grasp my chest and tug me free. I resignedly let her yank me out, and came into the cool night air. We stood at the end of a driveway of a familiar street.

“This is your address,” she checked.

I stared up in despair at the imposing, magnified façade of my house, feeling unwelcome like I'd just been evicted. There was that dual sense of familiarity and strangeness again. It crashed on me in an instant: I was six inches tall, my house was too big to live in anymore: I couldn't open the front door, or any of the interior doors, I was too short to work the door handle, too weak to open the refrigerator to feed myself, too small to turn the shower on to wash myself, possibly too small to climb into bed to sleep.

“Well, Goddamn,” said a voice from behind.

The officer turned, bringing me in front of my neighbor, Brandon Vega, who had just come over from his place. 

“Detective,” said the officer. “You were briefed? We found this little guy scurrying around on the floor at BizarroWorld."

Brandon looked me over with only the vaguest surprise, no more than if I’d gotten lost and the officer was escorting me home again. He must have been told what happened.

“What’s it look like down there?” he asked. “You sure he’s the only one?”

“Units have been called in to assist with securing the scene. We only found him so far, but another four UTL.  You think they're going to get you down there?”

“Awaiting the call,” Brandon sighed. “You know we can’t take anything or do lab work because this is a Super scene, they’re going to get their own Scanners to walk through and run the thing before it goes red ball. Or next level: Foundation.”

The female officer lifted me up in front of Brandon as if presenting me to him as some biological curiosity.

“And if they want to scan this guy? Should I take him back to the Station?”

Brandon shook his head gently.

“Let’s not displace him any more than necessary. If the Super Squad want to follow him up, they can locate him at the normal address.”

Then Brandon reached down and ruffled my hair. It was extra gentle but still, the strength in his touch pushed at my head and made me feel childlike. This was the same soft-spoken man I’d waved to earlier that morning, now he was a muscular giant with very firm touch.

"Hello there, Steve,” he said, in a voice too bright and sharp for nine pm at night, “It’s Brandon, remember? Sure, you’re a little smaller than last time I saw you, and I’m probably a lot bigger…” rather than finishing the thought, he said: “I think you’d better come back with me.”

I eyed his enormous features nervously, my body pulsing with dread.

“Where are you going to take me, sir?”

"My place,” he said. He gestured across the road. He chuckled. “And boom, we’ve arrived.”

He didn’t wait for my reply. His huge hands circled my torso so just my head, arms and lower legs were sticking out. His thumbs dug into my ribs with accidental pressure and my chest protested. I writhed until he got the message and loosened his grip, spreading around my body to distribute the pressure equally, instead of just applying it in one place. Now my legs swung free with nothing to stand on. It was unnerving; I was flying through the grainy darkness, the cool night air over my skin.

Leaving the female officer behind, we headed across the road to a modern, shallow-rooved style house, and small relief, it looked nothing like the antique white dollhouse. I tilted my head back and took a deep breath, trying to expand my lungs in spite of the pressure of the detective’s thick, muscular hand surrounding my entire torso. Far above, the night sky was the only thing that looked familiar anymore, the stars were the only things that didn’t look any bigger or smaller.

The porch light flicked on and Brandon dialed a code into the security system. The lights were on inside and the house spread all around, with room for miles. It seemed to extend out from every corner, like a panorama, except it didn’t just extend out lengthways, but every way. We went down the vast length of a creamy white hallway, before another light switch flicked to bath a living room in warm yellows. I accepted that I couldn’t see everything and stopped trying to twist my neck to catch up. Being carried was even a little fun if I gave my sense of body up totally.

I was put down on a sofa seat. As his hand released, cool air slipped in. I wished I was inside his warm hand again. My little body had fit inside the curvature of his hand so snugly I was beginning to feel attached to it, like a glove. Embarrassed at my dependence, I pulled the torn skirt strip tighter, feeling naked again. Brandon paused to click the remote and put it down next to me, before leaving the room. The TV jabbered on, shuffled through channels, and then stopped on a news broadcast. My attention snapped to the screen showing images of the crime scene taped off warehouse, as a reporter said:

“--News just coming in as to the body of an unidentified man found dead at the BizarroWorld theme park. Cause of death still awaiting autopsy result, however it’s believed the man may have attempted to cross the ‘Booster’ rollercoaster while a ride was in session and was struck by an oncoming car. Believing him to be ride prop, a park staff member may stored his body in a disused ride warehouse—” 

Brandon re-entered, moving purposefully towards the door. Meanwhile, I suddenly had an idea. Or, not an idea, a desperate itch to not be out of the Super loop just yet.

“Sir?” I said. But my voice was quieter now, and easily drowned out by the TV. The detective interrupted me:

“Just Brandon.”

“Brandon, can I use your internet?”

Distractedly, he swooped me up from the sofa and put me down on the living room table in front of a laptop. Then he said:

“I’m sorry to dash on you, kid, but I have to head out on a call. I think you know the one.”

As he left the house he called back, “Just sit tight.”

And he was gone. Car noise came from the garage before fading down the street. Whether he meant it or not, ‘low down’ seemed like a pretty succinct summary of my situation now.

Desperate for a distraction, I logged into a special sign-in page on the laptop, and coordinated instructions to the TV via WiFi. I just hoped Brandon’s TV picked up the signals from the satellites on my roof. The news broadcast went to black.

It was not actually ‘black’. There was a menu screen in infra-color – wavelengths of light the human eye could not see. Neither could I. In order to navigate the invisible prompts, I had to go by memory: press down four times, then press ‘okay’. Right three times, down, okay. Right four times, down nineteen times, okay. My friend Tripp, a Waver, taught me how.

The news returned.

I pumped my fist.

“Yeah!”

It was a different news program than before, and a channel that had probably never played on Brandon’s TV. The newsreader was a different person; his eyes tracked oddly, like an android, his pupils shone too bright when they looked straight into the camera, and sometimes they flashed red like a camera themselves. I remembered his name was Kirk, and he seemed to have had way too much plastic surgery. And not just plastics, but silicon, circuitry and a lot of controversial internal programming.

He announced:

“A Reducer felon has been arrested and charged for attempted kidnap of two Paragon Academy students during a standard test. Lucinda deLuca hijacked the students’ final cadetship exam and performed a reduction on one of the students, Steve Rockwell. The other student, Summer Sagittarius managed to flee the scene unharmed. Captain Zamira Venus, arrived on the scene to arrest deLuca, however, deLuca’s accomplice, Rodney Vock, died in the conflict. Miss Venus claims Mr Vock rushed at her, and in self-defence she performed a complex, high speed airborne manoeuvre, however in the confined space this backfired and resulted in Mr Vock’s death. Shortly following the incident, Miss Venus was quoted:

”The man came for me, and, you know, I’m a Soarer; I do what I know, which is fly. When I landed, the man was down.”

Foundation has declined to investigate further, sparking protest by some critics.

This is not the first time the self-proclaimed ‘Aero-Yogini Queen’ has generated reaction for her public appearances in Natural spaces. Previously she drew accusation of gratuitous ‘power-flashing’ to a Natural congregation at Hammerhead City stadium. Political commentator, Milo Matheson, who unsuccessfully petitioned against the UN’s invitation to Venus to give an opening address at its recent Assembly, posted ironically on social media:

"She declares unity and equality with Naturals. She reminds them she can fly and they can't."

Suddenly I regretted changing the channel. The Lux Network was the biggest media station in town, and it was pure, unfiltered bias. It loved to pile-on Zamira, as it did anyone who was colorful and outspoken. I turned down the volume.

What was left was the quietness of the vast house. And the aloneness trickled in.

Had Summer tried to contact me? Maybe she was embarrassed about what happened – I sure was. And something told me I wouldn’t be resitting the assignment. It was painful to think I might not have a place at the Academy anymore, but even more painful that I might not have a partner anymore.

Most lifelong Super partnerships were forged at the Academy, and graduates tended to melt back into society, pretending to be Natural. Almost every Super pretended to be Natural. It then became extra difficult to seek out other Supers, go on some assignments together, see if you were compatible. And for someone like me, who wasn’t even a Super, it would be practically impossible to convince a Super to accept me as an equal partner, or even something marginally less.

While I sunk into a meditative stupor, the door swept open with a cool fan of air, and then was quietly shut. In a few bounds a humungous shape descended on the room. Still in a mental fog, I automatically thought Brandon must have returned.  

Not Brandon. It was a girl.

I went into alert mode. The house was no longer a secure space. It had become dangerous territory. Someone else’s territory.

I jumped to my feet, eyes bouncing around the room, from object to object, trying to find an escape. My nerves were still elevated from the shock and I wasn’t thinking clearly. Being seen by strangers at diminutive size was still new and terrifying and embarrassing.

The girl turned her back as she moved to the kitchen area.

Seizing my chance, I ran to the edge of the table. My brain was still in ‘normal size’ mode, thinking the distance from the table to the floor couldn’t be that high.

Now, a choice: Either take a flying leap onto the corner of the rug, to soften my drop, or slide down the table leg, or drop onto a seat, and then drop again onto the floor.

But I was already on hands and knees, dropping my legs out over the edge, trying to hug them around the table leg. My legs slipped and then I was falling.

“Oh fuck!” I yelled.

The landing was hard and booted the air out of my chest.

The kitchen went quiet. She must have heard me.

I lay on my back with the light too bright in my eyes. My ears rung and the floor was tremoring rhythmically into my spine like a truck was passing by. Then the light was shaded over by the girl’s silhouette. She was looking right at me.

“Steve…?” she said. Her voice was too loud, just like everyone else’s. A primal instinct in my brain was still commanding me to run, but with my whole body twanging, I stayed put.

Suddenly the air seeped back into my lungs and my muscles were sharp again. I snapped up and sprinted over the floor, and then commando crawled under the sofa.

“Uh, okay,” the girl said. Surprisingly, she was not surprised. In fact, she looked completely unimpressed. “What are you doing?” Her voice seemed to circle the ceiling, and shiver through the sofa, and run through the floor, like a surround sound speaker system.

Only her sneakers were visible; platform sneakers. As if she needed extra platform. The treads were white, the very bottom faintly grayed by dirt. The sneakers paced along the floor, only to be kicked off and shunted to the side, in a gesture that turned each shoe into a lethal missile if one had hit me. Now, unfortunately, traces of sweat and worn shoe odor floated in under the couch.

Now, a pair of socked feet approached the sofa, and slowly the rest of her came into view; first her hands, stabilizing against the ground, and then as she got down onto her stomach.

The sight of her brought a knot in my stomach. Dark liquid eyes staring out from beneath heavy lashes, wavy brunette hair spilling down her shoulders. She had expressive looks, the type that transparently showed her emotions.

And she was attractive. Big fucking problem.

I found myself being studied by her big expressive eyes as if she was trying to figure out what species I was. It was almost as if she had trouble figuring out the reason for my outburst of terror.

Simple: her.

“You want to come out?” she said.

“How did you get in here?” I said in a tiny voice, staring out at her in wonder.

In return, she gave me a very easy smile that made me feel as exposed to her as if she’d lifted the sofa clean off my body. Maybe she was just trying to be friendly but body language on the giant scale was so captivating, and oppressively intimate, it was almost painfully self-conscious. I didn’t feel like I was being looked at, but looked into, examined, mentally weighed and measured. In one look, the girl got a greater eyeful of me than I her, and as with Zamira, I got the sense she could capture my entire being in one evaluative visual sweep. She was so big and blown up, and I was fully in the spotlight of her attention, with no way of easily getting myself out from under that spotlight. But less a spotlight, more like a microscope.

“Well,” she replied, bringing the volume of her voice down to match mine, “…I live here.”

Past her head her body sprawled out with amazing breadth, not ‘fat’ but a very sensual, sexy kind of ‘cuddly’, widest at her jugs and hips. Her chest alone seemed a hazard, if one of those big puppers sunk on me, they were capable of easily squooshing me. I felt much smaller and tighter just trying to wrap my eyes around her magnificent girth.

“Did you do this so that we can’t spy on you anymore?” she joked, nodding at my diminutive size. “Cause you’re a lot harder to see now.”

“You spy on me?” I said, prickled.

Her response was only a slight, incriminating smile. Then she murmured:

“You can come out, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Her batting lashes and was sending a warm glow into the pit of my stomach. Feeling kind of stupid, I began to pull myself towards the edge of the sofa and stood. She moved back and rose to her knees.

“Welcome to our house, I guess,” she giggled. “I’m so unfair because I already know you a bit, Steve,” she went on, “and you don’t know me at all.”

Her folded thighs were boulderously large and seeming to burst out of the skin tight pants. It was painfully awkward that my eyeline seemed to hover around her hips. I forced my head up to meet her face. The lights haloing her head seemed too bright and I was looking at her hips again, and then the ground. My forehead was sweating.

“Your dad’s Brandon,” I deduced aloud.

“You little Einstein, you got it!” she enthused, sarcastically. “I’m Vittoria.”

“Vittoria Vega,” I repeated. “You could be a Super with that name.” I said it before I could help myself, and she rolled her eyes, making me feel lame immediately. The traditional Super naming conventions – leaning to the fantastical or alliterative – were getting out of vogue these days, like calling your kid your name and tacking on ‘Jr.’

She brushed it off.

“I like Tori…it’s shorter.” She poked me in the chest really fast, as if to see if she could get away with it, “Like you.”